w  + 


jv 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


LIFE  AND  SERVICES 

OF 

WILLIAM   FARRAR  SMITH 

MAJOR  GENERAL,  UNITED  STATES  VOLUNTEERS 

IN 

THE  CIVIL  WAR 


A     SKETCH 


BY 


JAMES   HARRISON   WILSON 
\\ 

MAJOR  GENERAL,  U.  S.V. 


THE  JOHN  M.  ROGERS  PRESS 

WILMINGTON,  DEL. 

1904 


Heroes  of  the  Great  Conflict 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

MAJOR   GENERAL,   U.  S.  V. 


WILLIAM    FARRAR  SMITH, 
the  subject  of  this  sketch,  grad 
uated  at  West    Point  in    1845, 
fourth  in  a  class  of  forty-one  members. 
He  died  at  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania, 
on  the  28th  of  February,  1903    in   his 
seventy-ninth  year. 

The  publication  of  the  Rebellion 
Records  puts  within  the  reach  of  every 
student  the  official  reports  of  the  various 
campaigns  and  battles  of  the  Great  Con 
flict,  but  something  more  is  needed. 
They  deal  but  slightly  with  men's  mo 
tives,  and  still  less  with  their  personal 
peculiarities.  They  give  only  here  and 
there  any  idea  whatever  of  the  origin  of 
the  plans  of  campaigns  or  battles  and 
rarely  any  adequate  description  of  the 
topography  of  the  theatre  of  war,  or  of 
the  difficulties  to  be  overcome.  They 
describe  but  superficially  the  organiza 
tion,  equipment,  armament  and  supply 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


of  the  troops,  and  leave  their  trials,  hard 
ships  and  extraordinary  virtues  largely  to 
the  imagination.  They  are  entirely  si 
lent  as  to  the  qualities  and  idiosyncrasies 
of  the  leaders.  Neither  romance  nor  per 
sonal  adventure  finds  any  place  within 
their  pages,  and  fine  writing  is  entirely 
foreign  to  their  purpose.  They  are  for 
the  most  part  dry  and  unemotional  in 
style,  and  are  put  together  so  far  as  pos 
sible  chronologically  in  the  order  of  their 
importance  without  the  slightest  refer 
ence  to  literary  effect.  While  nothing  is 
more  untrustworthy  generally  than  per 
sonal  recollections  of  events  which  took 
place  over  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  those 
which  are  supported  by  letters  and  diaries 
are  of  inestimable  value  in  construing 
and  reconciling  the  official  reports.  But 
this  is  not  all.  The  daily  journals  and 
other  contemporaneous  publications  are 
quite  important  and  cannot  be  safely  left 
out  of  account.  All  must  be  taken  into 
consideration  before  the  final  distribution 
of  praise  and  blame  is  made,  or  the  last 
word  is  written  in  reference  to  events  or 
to  the  great  actors  who  controlled  or 
took  part  in  them. 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT          J 

In  the  list  of  the  most  notable  men 
of  the  day  the  name  of  Major  General 
WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH  must  be  re 
corded.  He  belonged  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  to  that  distinguished 
group  of  which  Lee  on  the  Southern 
side  and  McClellan  on  the  Northern, 
were  the  center.  Joseph  E.  Johnston 
and  William  B.  Franklin  were  his  most 
intimate  friends,  and  I  but  recall  what 
was  then  the  popular  belief  when  I  state 
that  they  were  widely  regarded  as  the 
best  educated  and  the  most  brilliant  offi 
cers  in  the  service.  They  were  in  middle 
life,  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  pow 
ers,  and  it  was  the  confident  opinion  of 
those  who  knew  them  best,  that  they 
were  sure  to  become  conspicuous  leaders 
in  the  impending  conflict.  Great  things 
were  expected  of  them,  and  in  this  the 
world  was  not  disappointed.  They  all 
reached  high  rank  and  great  distinction, 
but  only  one  of  the  group  was  fortunate 
enough  to  enroll  himself  amongst  the 
world's  great  commanders.  Johnston 
rose  to  the  leadership  of  an  independent 
army  but  failed  to  win  a  great  victory  or 
to  secure  the  entire  approval  of  his  su- 


8        GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


periors.  Franklin  was  without  doubt  a 
corps  commander  of  sound  judgment  and 
unshakable  courage,  but  he  also  failed  to 
achieve  the  success  that  was  expected  of 
him,  and  to  secure  the  support  and  con 
fidence  that  his  high  character  fully  en 
titled  him  to  look  for  from  his  Govern 
ment.  Smith  who  was  not  inferior  to 
the  ablest  of  his  friends  and  contem 
poraries,  in  the  art  and  science  of  war, 
had  a  career  of  great  usefulness,  in  which 
he  rendered  services  of  extraordinary 
value  and  brilliancy  but  which  ended  in 
disappointment  and  unhappiness. 

He  was  however  not  only  a  conspicu 
ous  officer  connected  with  important 
events  throughout  his  life,  and  especially 
during  the  Great  Conflict,  but  he  was 
a  singularly  virile  and  independent  char 
acter  who  exerted  great  influence  over  all 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  He  was 
strong,  self-contained  and  deliberate  in 
speech,  and  having  been  an  industrious 
student  and  an  acute  thinker  all  his  life, 
his  opinions  always  commanded  atten 
tion  and  respect.  It  so  happened  that 
his  services  brought  him  into  the  very 
focus  of  events  on  more  than  one  occa- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


sion.  It  so  happened  also  that  I  was 
more  or  less  intimate  with  him  to  the 
time  of  his  death,  from  the  date  of  my 
entry  into  the  Military  Academy,  where 
I  had  the  good  fortune  to  receive  his  in 
struction  in  mathematics.  I  first  met  him 
in  the  field,  while  I  was  serving  tempo 
rarily  on  the  staff  of  General  McClellan, 
and  he  was  commanding  a  division  in  the 
Antietam  campaign,  and  next  at  Chatta 
nooga,  whither  I  was  sent  in  advance  of 
General  Grant  to  prepare  for  his  coming, 
after  the  disastrous  battle  of  Chicka- 
mauga. 

Shortly  afterwards  Smith  was  trans 
ferred  to  Grant's  staff  as  Chief  Engineer, 
and  we  messed  and  served  together,  in 
the  closest  intimacy  throughout  that  cam 
paign,  and  until  I  was  assigned  to  duty 
in  the  War  Department  in  charge  of  the 
Cavalry  Bureau.  I  saw  him  frequently 
while  I  was  commanding  a  division  of 
cavalry  and  he  an  army  corps  in  Grant's 
overland  campaign  against  Richmond. 
During  the  latter  period  we  were  exceed 
ingly  intimate,  and  when  we  were  not 
serving  together  an  active  correspond 
ence  was  kept  up  between  us.  It  is  a 


IO     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


source  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to 
me  that  this  intimacy  became  still  closer 
after  General  Smith  was  appointed  agent 
of  the  United  States  and  assigned  as 
a  civil  engineer  to  the  charge  of  the 
river  and  harbor  works  on  the  Delaware 
and  Maryland  peninsula,  with  his  office 
at  Wilmington,  Delaware.  This  long 
and  close  intimacy,  extending  as  it  did 
over  the  greater  part  of  a  lifetime,  has 
afforded  me  an  ample  opportunity  of 
studying  his  character  and  familiarizing 
myself  with  the  facts  of  his  military 
career,  and  with  the  point  of  view  from 
which  he  considered  his  relations  to  the 
men  and  events  with  which  he  was  so 
conspicuously  connected. 

A  man  of  great  purity  of  character 
and  great  singleness  of  purpose,  he  took 
an  intense  interest  in  whatever  his  hand 
found  to  do.  He  felt  a  deep  and  abid 
ing  concern  in  all  public  and  professional 
questions,  and  was  both  a  tender  and 
affectionate  friend  and  an  unrelenting 
enemy.  He  was  a  bold  and  resolute 
thinker  who  indulged  in  no  half  way 
measures.  The  bolder  his  plans  and  the 
more  dangerous  his  undertakings,  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       II 


more  careful  was  he  in  working  out  the 
details,  and  the  more  attentive  was  he 
in  supervising  their  execution.  He  left 
nothing  to  chance,  but  provided  for  every 
possible  contingency  with  infinite  care 
and  yet  he  was  a  rapid  worker.  Meth 
odical  in  his  habits,  untiring  in  his  appli 
cation  and  deliberate  in  his  manner,  he 
was  always  ready,  always  on  time  and 
nearly  always  successful. 

In  following  him  through  the  trials 
and  vicissitudes  of  his  active  life  it  will 
be  seen  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  in 
teresting  personalities  of  his  day.  He 
played  a  bold  and  distinguished  part  in 
the  war  for  the  Union,  quite  out  of  pro 
portion  to  the  actual  command  which 
fell  to  his  lot.  Indeed,  it  may  well  be 
doubted  if  any  other  single  officer  ex 
erted  a  more  potential  or  beneficial  in 
fluence  than  he  did  upon  the  plans  and 
operations  in  which  he  took  part.  While 
he  was  austere  and  reserved  in  manners, 
he  was  most  highly  esteemed  by  all  with 
whom  he  served,  and  received  unstinted 
praise  for  his  suggestions  and  assistance, 
and  yet  strangely  enough  he  became  in 
volved  in  several  notable  military  con- 


12,    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

troversies,  which  so  enlisted  his  interest 
and  wounded  his  pride  as  to  materially 
change  his  career  and  cause  him  great 
unhappiness,  during  the  later  years  of 
his  life. 

It  may  be  truly  said  that  he  came  to 
know  by  experience  the  dangers  of  frank 
ness  and  friendly  criticism,  and  that  even 
the  most  patriotic  and  unselfish  men  in 
these  modern  times,  like  those  of  antiq 
uity  "have  their  ambitions  which  neither 
seas  normountains  nor  unpeopled  deserts 
can  limit ;"  their  egotism  and  personal 
interests  "which  neither  victory  nor  far- 
reaching  fame  can  suppress;"  their  secret 
motives  and  purposes  which  "cause  them 
to  injure  one  another  when  they  touch 
and  are  close  together."  After  all,  gen 
erals  and  statesmen  are  but  fallible  men, 
the  most  magnanimous  of  whom  are 
watchful  of  their  rivals,  and  love  not 
those  who  despitefully  use  them.  In  the 
vindication  of  his  claims  that  he  has 
rendered  some  service  to  his  country, 
General  Smith  has  made  several  valuable 
contributions*  to  current  American  his- 


*From  Chattanooga  to  Petersburg  under  Generals  Grant  and 
Butler,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  N.  V.   1893. 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       IJ 

tory,  and  has  in  addition  left  a  manu 
script  volume  of  personal  memoirs  upon 
which  I  shall  draw  as  occasion  offers, 
and  which  will  doubtless  be  published 
in  due  time.  They  were  written  during 
the  last  two  years  of  his  life  and  throw 
an  interesting  light,  not  only  upon  his 
own  deeds  and  character,  but  upon  the 
life  and  services  of  his  friends  and  co- 
temporaries.  They  are  conceived  in  a 
kindly  and  charitable  vein  which  does 
credit  both  to  his  heart  and  to  his  under 
standing. 

WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH  was  born  at 
St.  Albans,  in  Northern  Vermont,  on 
the  i  yth  of  February,  1 824.  He  came  of 
good  New  England  stock,  which  emi 
grated  from  Massachusetts  to  the  valley 
of  Lake  Champlain  before  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century.  Both  his  paternal 
and  maternal  ancestors  and  relations  were 
notable  people,  and  took  prominent  parts 
in  the  troubles  of  a  thinly-settled  fron 
tier,  and  especially  in  the  French  and 
Indian  war,  and  in  the  Committee  of 
Safety,  as  well  as  in  the  militia  and  vol 
unteers  during  the  Revolutionary  War. 
They  fought  at  the  battle  of  Lake 


14     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


George,  at  the  capture  of  Fort  Ticon- 
deroga,  and  at  the  affairs  at  Hubbardton 
and  Bennington.  They  were  the  com 
panions  of  Stark,  Seth  Warner  and 
Ethan  Allen,  and  appear  to  have  borne 
themselves  bravely  and  well  upon  all 
occasions.  They  were  by  name  Robin 
sons,  Saffords,  Fays,  Butlers  and  Smiths. 
There  is  a  well-founded  tradition  that 
his  father's  family,  which  came  from  the 
old  hill  town  of  Barre,  Massachusetts, 
were  known  during  the  earlier  colonial 
days  as  Smithson,  but  before  emigrating 
to  Vermont  dropped  the  second  syllable 
for  the  sake  of  simplicity,  and  always 
thereafter  called  themselves  Smith. 

William's  father  was  a  respectable 
farmer  at  or  near  St.  Albans.  His  uncle 
John  was  a  lawyer  and  a  judge  of  dis 
tinction,  and  during  the  excitement 
growing  out  of  the  Canadian  rebellion  of 
1837,  was  elected  to  the  next  Congress. 
He  was  a  Democrat  and  the  only  one  up 
to  that  time  ever  elected  from  the  State. 
During  his  term  of  service  he  gave  the 
appointment  of  cadet  at  West  Point  to 
his  nephew  William.  His  cousin  John 
Gregory  Smith,  also  a  lawyer  of  distinc- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   15 

tion,  was  afterwards  Governor  of  Ver 
mont,  and  for  many  years  president  of 
the  Vermont  Central  and  Northern  Pa 
cific  Railroads.  His  grandmother  Smith 
also  from  Barre,  was  the  sister  of  a  cer 
tain  Captain  Gregory  of  the  Highland 
regiment  serving  in  Boston  before  the 
Revolution.  Through  this  connection 
the  General  always  believed  he  received 
a  strain  of  McGregor  blood,  for  many 
of  that  clan  took  the  name  of  Gregory 
after  their  immigration  to  the  colonies. 

His  own  mother  was  Sarah  Butler,  a 
direct  descendent  of  Isaac  and  Samuel 
Robinson  who  were  believed  to  have 
come  in  the  direct  line  from  the  cele 
brated  puritan  pastor,  John  Robinson, 
of  Leyden,  who  was  long  recognized  by 
even  those  who  differed  with  him  on 
questions  of  doctrine  as  "the  most  learn 
ed,  polished  and  modest  spirit  that  ever 
separated  from  the  Church  of  England." 
To  the  prepotency  of  this  distinguished 
divine,  General  Smith  often,  in  a  tone  of 
mingled  banter  and  seriousness,  attribu 
ted  not  only  his  habit  of  mature  reflec 
tion  and  love  of  learning,  but  also  his 
"moderation  combined  with  firmness" 


I  6    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

upon  all  questions  which  engaged  his 
attention. 

Be  all  this  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that 
his  family  were  straight  Anglo-Saxons, 
who  like  the  rest,  came  into  New  Eng 
land  under  the  pressure  of  religious  and 
political  disturbance  at  home,  and 
brought  with  them  the  sturdy  virtues 
and  ineradicable  prejudices  of  their  race. 
It  is  equally  certain  that  this  race,  what 
ever  its  origin  and  however  it  may  have 
been  compounded  and  produced,  has 
thriven  and  expanded  in  America,  and 
that  our  country  is  indebted  to  it  for 
not  only  its  greatest  scholars,  divines 
and  statesmen,  but  for  its  greatest  sold 
iers  as  well.  General  Smith  belonged 
by  nature  and  education  to  both  classes, 
and  before  this  sketch  is  concluded  I 
hope  to  show  that  in  the  highest  walks 
of  his  chosen  profession  he  had  few 
equals  and  no  superiors. 

Like  many  another  youth,  his  latent 
love  of  arms  and  his  determination  to 
go  to  West  Point  were  aroused  by  see 
ing  a  company  of  regular  soldiers,  and 
making  the  acquaintance  of  its  officers, 
at  his  native  town.  They  were  sent  there 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       IJ 


to  maintain  order  and  prevent  violations 
of  the  neutrality  laws  during  the  Cana 
dian  disturbances  in  igjy— g-  From  the 
day  of  his  cadetship  he  received  the 
sobriquet  and  was  always  thereafter  des 
ignated  familiarly  by  his  more  intimate 
friends  as  Baldy  Smith  in  contradistinc 
tion  from  other  officers  of  the  same 
patronymic.  In  the  old  days  his  name 
would  have  been  written  Baldysmith. 

He  was  a  brilliant  and  faithful  student 
and  became  in  turn  a  cadet-corporal, 
color-sergeant  and  lieutenant.  When  it 
is  recalled  that  he  received  those  honors 
from  that  prince  of  soldiers  Captain 
(afterwards  Major  General)  Charles  F. 
Smith,  then  commandant  of  cadets,  and 
in  whose  presence  it  is  said  no  graduate 
of  his  time  could  ever  appear  without 
involuntarily  assuming  the  position  of  a 
soldier,  it  will  be  understood  that  young 
Smith  was  brought  up  under  proper  in 
fluences  and  sent  forth  with  the  highest 
ideals  of  his  profession.  He  graduated 
in  the  "fives"  of  his  class.  He  was  com 
missioned  as  a  Brevet  Second  Lieutenant 
in  the  corps  of  Topographical  Engineers, 
and  served  with  it  continuously  till,  for 


I  8     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


convenience  and  simplicity  of  adminis 
tration,  it  was  merged  with  the  Corps  of 
Engineers  after  the  outbreak  of  the  Re 
bellion.  At  the  request  of  his  chief,  he 
gave  up  two-thirds  of  the  usual  gradu 
ating  leave  of  absence  to  lend  a  hand  to 
an  under-manned  surveying  party  on 
Lake  Erie.  His  services  were  from  the 
first  of  the  scientific  and  useful  rather 
than  the  showy  sort.  They  brought  him 
a  wide  range  of  valuable  experience,  ex 
tending  from  the  surveys  of  the  great 
lakes  to  explorations  of  Texas  and  Ari 
zona,  covering  a  period  of  seven  years, 
two  of  which  were  spent  under  Joseph  E. 
Johnston  and  William  H.  Emory,  then 
of  the  same  corps,while  engaged  in  estab 
lishing  the  new  boundary  line  between 
Mexico  and  the  United  States.  During 
his  service  in  that  region  he  located  the 
stage  and  wagon-route  from  San  Antonio 
to  El  Paso,  surveyed  a  part  of  the  Rio 
Grande  Valley,  and  familiarized  himself 
with  the  topography  and  resources  of 
Northwestern  Texas  and  the  state  of  Chi 
huahua  in  Mexico.  Later  he  was  trans 
ferred  to  Florida  and  made  surveys  for  a 
ship  canal  across  the  peninsula  from  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       19 

Atlantic  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Subse 
quently  he  had  charge  of  the  Eleventh 
District  in  the  light-house  service  with 
his  headquarters  at  Detroit.  He  then 
became  Assistant  Secretary,  and  finally 
on  the  retirement  of  his  friend,  Captain 
Franklin,  Engineer  Secretary  of  the 
Light-House  Board.  He  had  previously 
asked  for  service  with  the  army  in  Mex 
ico,  but  this  had  been  denied.  His  serv 
ice  in  Texas  and  Florida  had  brought  him 
in  contact  with  a  number  of  officers  who 
afterwards  became  distinguished  in  the 
Civil  War.  Among  the  most  notable 
of  these  were  Buell,  Joseph  E.  John 
ston,  McClellan,  Meade,  Burnside  and 
Emory.  His  light-house  service  gave 
him  a  friendly  association  with  Commo 
dore  Shubrick  and  Captain  (afterwards 
Admiral)  Jenkins  of  the  navy,  General 
Totten  of  the  army,  Professor  Bache  of 
the  Coast  survey  and  Professor  Henry  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institute,  and  opened  to 
him  a  wide  acquaintance  with  the  scien 
tific  thought  of  the  day.  While  con 
nected  with  the  Light-House  board  he 
planned  and  supervised  the  construc 
tion  of  four  first-class  light-houses,  one 


2O     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


for  Montauk  Point,  two  for  Navesink 
Highlands  and  Sandy  Hook,  and  one 
for  Cape  Canaveral.  These  were  all 
works  of  the  highest  class,  fully  abreast 
of  the  world's  best  practice  at  the  time. 
His  experience  in  connection  with  the 
Light-House  Board  prepared  the  way  for 
a  piece  of  specially  useful  service  to  the 
country  during  the  exciting  period  just 
prior  to  the  outbreak  of  actual  hostilities 
between  the  North  and  the  South.  His 
position  gave  him  access  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  as  the  chief  of  the  de 
partment  to  which  the  Light-House 
Board  belonged.  The  storm  then  brewing 
showed  itself  in  that  board,  made  up,  as 
it  was,  of  Northern  and  Southern  men, 
as  well  as  elsewhere,  and  being  intensely 
loyal,  Smith  took  measures  to  protect 
and  supply  the  principal  light-houses  on 
the  southern  coast.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  Howell  Cobb  of  Georgia  was 
succeeded  by  General  John  A.  Dix  of 
New  York  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  that  the  latter  aroused  the  drooping 
hopes  of  the  country  by  his  celebrated 
order  :  "  If  any  man  attempts  to  haul 
down  the  American  flag  shoot  him  on 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   21 

the  spot."  Smith  was  privy  to  and 
encouraged  the  issuance  of  that  order. 
Immediately  afterwards  General  Dix 
gave  him  carte-blanche  over  the  light 
house  service,  in  pursuance  of  which  he 
visited  all  the  important  southern  light 
stations,  winding  up  at  Key  West.  He 
found  that  place  cut  off  from  communi 
cation  with  Washington,  and  liable  to 
fall  at  once  under  the  control  of  the  Se 
cessionists.  The  Collector  of  Customs 
was  a  southern  man  and  disloyal.  The 
people  of  the  town  were  in  sympathy 
with  him,  and  were  doing  all  they  could 
to  overawe  Captains  Hunt  and  Bran- 
nan,  who  were  stationed  there  with  a 
small  force  of  regular  artillery.  They 
were  loyal  and  able  officers.  Both  rose 
to  distinction  afterwards,  but  having 
been  left  without  instructions  they  were 
at  a  loss  as  to  their  proper  course  till 
Smith  arrived  with  the  latest  news  from 
Washington.  His  clear  and  determined 
counsel  gave  them  heart  and  encourage 
ment,  under  which  they  made  good  their 
hold  upon  the  fort  and  the  island.  They 
were  reinforced  in  due  time,  which  en 
abled  the  government  to  hold  this  im- 


22     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


portant  strategic  position  at  the  entrance 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  till  the  termina 
tion  of  the  war  put  an  end  to  all  danger. 
Before  returning  to  the  north,  Smith 
visited  Havana,  where  he  obtained  valu 
able  information  for  future  use. 

So  far  his  work  had  been  preparatory, 
and  one  of  the  most  useful  features  of 
it  was  his  tour  of  duty  at  West  Point. 
His  services  in  the  south,  and  especially 
at  Corpus  Christi,  had  brought  on  a 
severe  attack  of  malarial  poisoning,  end 
ing  in  congestive  chills  and  shattered 
health,  followed  by  sick-leave  and  a 
return  to  the  north.  Before  he  had  en 
tirely  recovered  he  was  ordered  to  West 
Point,  as  principal  Assistant  Professor 
of  Mathematics.  This  was  in  1855, 
but  his  illness  had  so  seriously  affected 
his  head  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  him 
to  discharge  the  duties  of  his  position 
in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  himself.  As 
one  of  his  pupils,  I  failed  to  discover 
any  lack  of  knowledge  or  prespicacity  on 
his  part.  To  the  contrary,  he  impressed 
the  sections  of  which  he  had  charge  as  a 
very  clear-headed  man  with  remark 
able  powers  of  mind  and  great  aptitude 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      23 


as  a  disciplinarian  and  teacher.  It  is 
now  known,  however,  that  the  close 
attention  and  mental  exertion  which  his 
duties  required  of  him  gave  him  such 
pain  as  to  make  it  imperative  that  he 
should  be  relieved,  and  this  was  done  at 
his  own  request  after  a  year's  hard  work 
and  suffering.  The  injury  he  had  re 
ceived  was  unfortunately  never  entirely 
overcome.  Throughout  the  whole  of 
his  subsequent  life  he  was  subject  to  re 
current  attacks  of  malaria,  accompanied 
by  pain  in  the  head  with  a  tendency  to 
mental  depression,  which  disabled  him 
entirely  at  times,  and  upon  one  most 
important  occasion  compelled  him  to 
leave  the  field,  when  his  interests  and  his 
inclinations  demanded  that  he  should 
remain.  I  refer  now  especially  to  the 
time  when  he  was  assigned  by  General 
Grant  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  James,  to  succeed  Major  General  But 
ler,  who  was  at  the  same  time  ordered  to 
return  to  Fortress  Monroe.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  this  order  was  never 
carried  into  effect,  but  that  General 
Smith,  who  was  suffering  from  one  of  his 
attacks,  took  leave  of  absence,  much  to 


24     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


the  concern  of  his  friends,  and  went  by 
the  way  of  Fortress  Monroe  to  New 
York.  There  was  no  great  movement 
under  way  at  the  time,  but  before  his 
leave  of  absence  had  expired  he  was  no 
tified  that  the  order  in  question  had  been 
countermanded.  Various  explanations 
were  given  for  this  action,  and  I  shall 
recur  to  it  again.  But  it  is  believed  by 
those  who  were  interested  in  General 
Smith,  and  had  confidence  in  his  unu 
sual  capacity  for  high  command,  that  his 
relief  was  largely,  if  not  altogether,  due  to 
intrigue,  on  the  part  of  General  Butler, 
aided  perhaps  by  an  exaggerated  esti 
mate  on  the  part  of  General  Grant  of 
that  officer's  political  importance,  which 
General  Smith  could  easily  have  defeated 
had  he  been  on  the  ground  in  actual 
command  of  the  army  to  which  he  had 
been  assigned. 

But  to  return  to  his  services  at  West 
Point.  It  was  during  this  year  that  he 
greatly  widened  his  knowledged  of  mili 
tary  history  and  the  art  of  war.  Although 
far  from  well,  he  led  the  studious  life  of 
a  scientist,  and  in  the  daily  companion 
ship  of  the  professors  and  of  Lieutenants 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      1  $ 


Silvey  and  Holabird,  two  officers  of  dis 
tinguished  talent  and  learning,  he  obtain 
ed  new  and  broader  views  of  professional 
subjects.  He  had  early  become  noted  as 
having  an  investigating  mind  which  could 
not  be  satisfied  with  superficial  know 
ledge,  and  for  a  sound  and  conservative 
judgment  which  gave  great  weight  to  his 
conclusions.  He  was  most  deliberate  and 
methodical  in  his  habits  of  thought,  and 
had  an  unusually  tenacious  grip  upon  the 
thread  of  his  argument.  His  manners 
and  movements,  while  free  from  every 
appearance  of  hurry  and  excitement, 
were  habitually  so  well  ordered  that  he 
was  enabled  to  cover  a  great  deal  of 
ground  in  a  small  space  of  time.  Always 
a  close  student  of  the  higher  branches 
of  his  profession,  and  belonging  to  an 
elite  corps  which  at  that  time  had  no 
part  in  the  command  of  troops,  he  be 
came  a  proficient  in  military  organization, 
administration  and  logistics,  and  also  in 
strategy  and  grand-tactics,  as  taught  in 
the  text  books,  long  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  for  the  Union,  but  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  he  never  claimed  to  have 
become  specially  skilled  in  minor  tactics, 


26     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


or  in  the  daily  routine  of  company  or 
regimental  service.  He  was,  however, 
so  profoundly  devoted  to  the  military 
profession  in  a  larger  way,  that  at  times 
he  gave  to  those  less  learned  than  him 
self  the  idea  that  he  was  a  pedant  in 
knowledge  and  a  martinet  on  duty.  With 
imperturbable  self-possession,  great  lu 
cidity  of  statement  and  a  decidedly  delib 
erate  and  austere  manner,  he  was  widely 
recognized  as  a  masterful  man,  who  won 
easily  and  without  effort  the  respect 
and  admiration,  not  only  of  the  cadets 
who  fell  under  his  charge  at  West  Point, 
but  afterwards  of  the  men  and  officers 
who  came  under  his  command  from  the 
volunteers.  To  such  as  are  acquainted 
with  West  Point  life,  or  with  the  rela 
tions  existing  between  officers  and  men 
in  the  army,  no  higher  evidence  can 
be  given  of  Smith's  real  abilities  and 
strength  of  character.  It  is  a  creditable 
fact  that  no  cadet,  however  adroit  or 
skilful  can  cheat  his  way  through  the 
Military  Academy,  and  that  no  officer, 
however  plausible,  can  for  any  consider 
able  time  deceive  or  impose  upon  the 
cadets  with  a  pretense  of  knowledge  or 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       2J 

a  show  of  character  which  he  does  not 
possess.  The  same  is  true  perhaps  in  a 
less  degree  ef  the  volunteers  and  their 
officers.  Occasionally  a  cadet  or  an  offi 
cer  may  be  so  modest  or  unobtrusive  or 
so  slow  of  development  as  to  escape  the 
critical  observation  of  his  associates,  but 
in  most  cases  he  becomes  sufficiently 
known  to  justify  a  correct  estimate  of 
his  character  and  a  fair  prediction,  under 
favorable  opportunities,  as  to  his  prob 
able  course  and  success  in  life.  Of 
WILLIAM  F.  SMITH  it  may  be  truthfully 
said  that  he  made  his  best  friends  among 
the  cadets  he  taught  and  the  subordi 
nates  he  commanded,  not  one  of  whom 
ever  deserted  him  in  trouble  or  adver 
sity,  denied  the  greatness  of  his  talents 
or  questioned  the  elevation  of  his  char 
acter.  His  troubles  and  differences  were 
always  with  those  above  him,  never  with 
those  under  his  command. 

As  is  frequently  the  fate  of  the  strong 
man  gifted  with  an  analytical  mind,  and 
an  outspoken  contempt  of  pretense  and 
sham,  it  was  Smith's  misfortune  upon 
more  than  one  occasion  to  arouse  the 
animosity  and  opposition  of  those  hav- 


28     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


ing  higher  rank  than  himself.  Direct 
and  vigorous  in  his  methods,  and  con 
fident  of  the  rectitude  of  his  purposes, 
he  never  hesitated  to  give  his  views  to 
such  as  he  believed  to  be  entitled  to 
them,  without  reference  to  whether  they 
would  be  well  received  or  not.  Loyal 
and  truthful  by  nature,  he  always  held 
others  to  the  high  standard  which  he  set 
up  for  himself.  Brought  up  to  a  rigid 
observance  of  military  discipline,  it  is 
not  to  be  denied  that  he  was  exacting  in 
a  high  degree,  with  those  over  whom  he 
found  himself  in  command.  While  he 
never  permitted  those  below  him  to  vary 
from  or  to  disregard  his  instructions,  it 
is  perhaps  true  that  like  most  men  of 
talent,  he  was  somewhat  impatient  of  re 
straint,  especially  in  cases  where  he  felt 
himself  to  be  abler  than  his  commanding 
officer,  or  better  informed  as  to  the  actual 
conditions  of  his  work,  and  yet  no  man 
knew  better  than  he  when  the  time  for 
discussion  and  the  exercise  of  discretion 
ended  and  that  for  obedience  and  vigor 
ous  action  began.  If  at  any  time  later 
in  life  he  seemed  to  forget  the  true  rule 
for  his  own  guidance,  it  must  be  inferred 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       29 


that  he  was  sorely  tried  by  the  ignorance 
or  incompetency  of  those  above  him, 
or  had  overestimated  their  forebearance 
or  friendship  for  him,  or  their  zeal  for 
the  public  service.  Always  highly  con 
scientious  in  his  purposes  and  independ 
ent  in  his  thoughts  it  was  but  natural 
that  he  should  scorn  "to  crook  the  preg 
nant  hinges  of  the  knee  where  thrift 
may  follow  fawning."  Not  always  as 
patient  and  conciliatory  with  his  equals 
as  a  less  virile  or  rugged  nature  would 
have  made  him,  he  occasionally  aroused 
antagonisms  and  made  enemies,  as  such 
characters  always  do,  and  those  enemies 
were  not  slow  to  impugn  his  motives, 
nor  to  do  what  they  could  to  mar  his 
career.  Withal,  it  will  appear  from  a 
careful  study  of  his  life  and  services  as 
set  forth  in  the  records,  and  as  explained 
by  his  own  writings,  that  his  critics  have 
signally  failed  to  mar  the  foundation  of 
his  reputation  or  to  deprive  him  of  the 
fame  to  which  his  brilliant  achievements 
so  justly  entitle  him. 

The  culmination  of  the  political  agi 
tation  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Federal 
Union,  and  the  commencement  of  actual 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


hostilities  between  the  government  and 
the  seceding  states,  found  WILLIAM  F. 
SMITH,  only  a  captain  by  law,  after  four 
teen  years  of  continuous  service,  a  few 
months  over  thirty-seven  years  of  age, 
and  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  faculties. 
As  before  stated,  his  health  was  never 
afterwards  altogether  stable,  but  it  was 
sufficiently  re-established  to  enable  him 
to  throw  himself  heartily  into  the  strug 
gle  and  to  perform  such  duties  as  fell  to 
his  lot  with  a  fair  degree  of  endurance. 
Although  a  Democrat,  as  far  as  he  had 
any  party  connection,  his  sympathies 
were  all  with  the  Union  and  National 
Government,  and  impelled  him  to  lose 
no  time,  but  make  haste,  on  his  return 
from  Key  West  and  Havana,  to  obtain 
such  employment  as  might  be  open  to 
him.  The  first  duty  that  was  offered 
him  was  in  New  York,  where  he  was  en 
gaged  for  several  weeks  in  mustering  the 
volunteers  into  the  United  States  service. 
During  this  period,  on  the  24th  of 
April,  1 86 1,  he  was  married  to  Miss 
Sarah  Lyon,  a  young  lady  of  New  York, 
who  was  famous  for  the  lovliness  of  her 
person  and  character,  whom  he  had  first 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      3! 


met  two  years  before.  It  was  on  a  short 
wedding  trip  to  his  native  state  that  he 
offered  his  services  to  the  Governor. 
The  latter  had  already  raised  and  organ 
ized  two  regiments  of  infantry  but  with 
out  hesitation  he  promised  Captain 
Smith  the  next,  as  soon  as  it  should  be 
called  for. 

Meanwhile  he  was  still  subject  to 
duty  as  an  engineer  officer,  and  as  such, 
strangely  enough  was  ordered  to  report 
to  Major  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler, 
fresh  from  the  life  of  a  successful  lawyer, 
then  in  command  at  Fortress  Monroe, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  i  st  of  June,  1 8  6 1 . 
While  there  he  conducted  several  im 
portant  reconnoissances  in  the  direction 
of  Yorktown  and  Big  Bethel,  and  thus 
became  acquainted  with  a  region  in 
which  he  was  afterwards  to  play  a  most 
important  part.  His  services  lasted 
something  less  than  two  months,  and 
became  still  more  notable  from  the  fact 
that  they  made  him  thoroughly  ac 
quainted  with  General  Butler.  They 
were  brought  suddenly  to  an  end  by  the 
reappearance  of  his  old  trouble,  which 
in  time  made  it  necessary  for  him  to 


32     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

take  a  sick-leave.  The  surgeon  who 
had  him  in  charge  directed  him  to  again 
seek  the  tonic  climate  of  Brattleborough 
in  his  native  State.  According  to  pro 
mise,  his  good  friend,  the  Governor, 
took  the  earliest  opportunity  to  send  him 
his  commission  as  Colonel  of  the  Third 
Regiment  of  Vermont  Volunteer  In 
fantry,  to  date  from  July  i6th.  But 
owing  to  the  scarcity  of  regular  officers, 
he  had  previously  been  ordered  to  duty 
on  the  staff  of  General  McDowell,  then 
commanding  the  army  in  front  of  Wash 
ington,  though,  his  health  did  not  per 
mit  him  to  join  in  time  to  take  part  in 
the  forward  movement  which  ended  in 
the  disastrous  battle  of  Bull  Run. 

As  soon  however  as  his  strength  was 
sufficiently  re-established  Colonel  Smith 
repaired  to  Washington,  and  in  the  rush 
and  excitement  which  prevailed  after  the 
return  of  the  defeated  army  to  that 
neighborhood,  he  was  engaged  in  help 
ing  to  fortify  and  defend  that  city  till  the 
danger  was  past  and  the  requirements 
of  his  regiment  made  it  necessary  for 
him  to  take  command  and  begin  its  pre 
paration  for  active  service.  It  is  to  be 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      JJ 

noted  that  there  was  an  unaccountable 
reluctance  on  the  part  of  the  War  De 
partment  at  the  time,  to  permit  the  de 
tachment  of  officers  belonging  to  the 
various  staff  corps,  for  the  purpose  of 
commanding  volunteers,  but  this  was 
overcome  without  much  difficulty  in 
his  case,  and  he  began  his  career  as  an 
infantry  colonel  opportunely  at  the  very 
time  that  McClellan  was  re-organizing 
the  defeated  army  and  badly  needed  the 
assistance  of  educated  officers.  Deeply 
impressed  with  the  importance  of  stim 
ulating  the  pride  of  the  volunteers,  and 
of  keeping  alive  the  heroic  traditions  of 
their  state  by  all  proper  means,  Colonel 
Smith  recommended  that  the  Vermont 
regiments  should  be  brigaded  and  trained 
together,  and  fortunately  this  was  ap 
proved  by  General  McClellan.  The 
Green  Mountain  men  had  won  great 
renown  in  the  Colonial  and  Revolu 
tionary  Wars  by  virtue  of  their  state 
organization  and  services  and  the  marked 
individuality  which  characterized  them. 
It  was  a  happy  thought  to  keep  them 
together  during  the  Civil  War.  The 
sequel  showed  that  it  was  not  only  highly 


34     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

beneficial  to  the  national  cause,  but  that 
it  added  greatly  to  the  fame  of  the  Ver 
mont  men. 

As  the  war  was  a  sectional  one  in  its 
origin,  many  of  our  best  officers  believed 
that  the  volunteer  regiments  should  be 
formed  into  brigades  and  divisions,  with 
out  reference  to  the  States  from  which 
they  came.  They  held  that  an  army  or 
ganized  in  this  way  would  more  rapidly 
develop  the  national  spirit  and  become 
a  more  efficient  military  machine  than 
one  formed  on  state  or  sectional  lines, 
and  the  general  practice  to  the  end  of 
the  war,  in  the  Union  army,  was  in  ac 
cordance  with  this  idea. 

The  Vermont  brigade,  composed  of 
the  Second,  Third,  Fourth,  Fifth  and 
Sixth  Vermont  Regiments,  was  the  one 
notable  exception  to  this  practice  and  the 
result  was  in  every  way  satisfactory.  It 
preserved  its  identity  till  the  end  of  the 
war  and  became  famous  as  one  of  the 
best  and  most  distinctive  organizations 
that  ever  upheld  the  Union  cause.  It 
was  composed  almost  entirely  of  native 
Vermont  men,  racy  of  the  soil,  hardy, 
self-reliant  and  courageous,  and  always 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      35 

ready  for  the  serious  business  of  warfare. 
It  owned  its  early  and  enduring  discipline 
to  Smith,  who  was  appointed  Brigadier 
General  on  the  ijth  of  August,  and  from 
that  time  forth  it  never  ceased  to  have  a 
place  in  his  affections.  From  the  first 
he  took  a  special  pride  in  his  regiment, 
and  devoted  himself  earnestly  to  its  in 
struction  and  discipline,  for  the  perfec 
tion  of  which  it  soon  became  noted,  but 
in  those  days  of  rapid  changes,  when  the 
loyal  states  were  sending  forth  their  vol 
unteers  by  the  hundred  thousand,  bri 
gades  soon  grew  into  divisions,  and  di 
visions  into  army-corps  and  armies. 

General  Smith  was  then  at  exactly  the 
right  age,  and  had  already  achieved  such 
a  high  reputation  as  a  scientific  and  com 
petent  soldier,  that  he  was  called  upon 
after  only  a  few  weeks'  service  as  a 
brigade  commander  to  take  charge  of 
a  division  of  three  brigades.  Looking 
about  him  with  anxious  care  for  a  suit 
able  successor,  he  assigned  the  Vermont 
Brigade  to  the  command  of  Brigadier 
General  William  T.  H.  Brooks,  a  grad 
uate  of  West  Point  from  Ohio,  but  a 
grandson  of  Vermont.  He  was  a  vet- 


36     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


eran  of  the  Mexican  and  Indian  Wars, 
in  which  he  had  gained  great  experience, 
and  from  which  he  became  justly  famous 
as  one  of  the  finest  soldiers  of  his  time. 
A  man  of  striking  countenance,  great 
physical  vigor  and  dauntless  courage,  he 
was  an  ideal  leader  of  the  Vermont  men 
and  at  once  won  their  confidence  and  re 
spect.  It  is  one  of  the  traditions  of  the 
times  that  under  him  "The  Iron  Bri 
gade,"  as  it  soon  came  to  be  known 
throughout  the  army,  was  never  repulsed 
and  never  failed  to  accomplish  the  task 
before  it.  Its  "skirmish  line"  was  be 
lieved  to  be  "stronger  than  an  old- 
fashioned  line  of  battle,"  and  when  it 
covered  the  advance,  the  column  behind 
it  had  to  put  forth  its  best  efforts  to  keep 
up.  From  the  brigadier  general  to  the 
lowest  private,  they  not  only  knew  their 
business,  but  just  when  they  should  be 
called  upon  to  take  the  lead.  It  was 
one  of  the  grizzled  privates  during  the 
pursuit  of  Lee  from  the  field  of  Gettys 
burg,  who  perceiving  that  the  cavalry 
was  making  but  poor  progress,  said  from 
the  ranks  as  General  Sedgwick  was 
passing:  "  I  'low  you  want  to  get  to 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      37 

Williamsport  tonight,  don't  you,  Uncle 
John  ?"  "  Yes,  my  man,"  said  the  Gen 
eral.  "Well,  in  that  case  you  had  better 
put  the  Vermont  brigade  to  the  front!" 
The  suggestion  was  at  once  adopted, 
and  under  the  sturdy  advance  which  fol 
lowed  the  desired  camp  was  reached  that 
night  without  a  check  or  a  halt  by  the 
way. 

The  other  two  brigades  of  Smith's 
division  were  commanded,  respectively, 
by  Windfield  Scott  Hancock  and  Isaac 
I.  Stevens,  two  soldiers  of  the  highest 
quality,  and  both  destined  to  achieve 
undying  fame.  When  their  subsequent 
career  is  considered  it  may  well  be 
doubted  if  there  was  ever  a  division  in 
the  Union  army  commanded  by  abler 
men  than  Hancock,  Stevens,  Brooks 
and  Baldy  Smith.  During  the  forma 
tive  period  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  when  all  were  drilling,  all  studying 
tactics,  all  teaching  guard  duty  and  all 
striving  hard  to  establish  a  satisfactory 
state  of  military  dicipline,  Smith  varied 
this  irksome  work  by  an  occasional  re 
view,  or  by  the  still  more  exciting  exer 
cise  of  a  reconnoissance  in  force,  thus 


38     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


adding  practice  to  precept,  and  bringing 
regiments  and  brigades  to  act  coherently 
together.  In  all  this  he  handled  his  di 
vision  skillfully  and  well,  and  conse 
quently  soon  had  the  satisfaction  of 
showing  those  in  authority  over  him 
that  it  was  in  admirable  spirits  and  con 
dition. 

How  far  he  favored  the  policy  of 
delay  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  the 
army's  strength  and  perfecting  its  organi 
zation  is  not  certainly  known,  but  it  must 
be  admitted  on  his  own  testimony  that 
he  belonged  to  the  coterie  of  officers  who 
fully  trusted  and  supported  McClellan 
in  the  determination  to  make  complete 
preparation  before  moving  against  the 
enemy.  Nor  is  it  known  what  part  he 
took  in  the  selection  of  the  line  of  ope 
rations  ultimately  adopted  by  McClellan 
for  the  capture  of  Richmond.  Perhaps 
this  is  not  important,  for  neither  the 
duty  nor  the  responsibility  of  the  choice 
was  his.  It  is  not  likely,  however,  that 
he  was  consulted  for  his  acquaintance 
with  McClellan  was  not  at  first  close  or 
intimate.  At  a  later  period  he  joined 
his  friend  General  Franklin,  then  gener- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      39 


ally  acknowledged  as  one  of  the  leading 
military  men  of  the  day,  in  a  letter  to 
the  President  recommending  the  trans 
fer  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  from 
the  vicinity  of  Fredericksburg  to  the 
James  River,  as  near  to  Richmond  as 
practicable,  and  urging  its  re-inforcement 
by  all  the  troops  that  could  be  gathered 
from  the  departments  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard.  Without  discussing  here  the 
origin  or  the  wisdom  of  this  contro 
verted  proposition,  it  may  be  remarked 
that  it  was  supported  by  such  an  array 
of  arguments  and  influence  as  would 
doubtless  have  secured  another  trial  for 
it,  even  in  the  face  of  its  failure  under 
McClellan,  had  the  condition  and 
strength  of  the  army,  and  the  resources 
of  the  country  been  considered  by  the 
administration  sufficient  to  meet  all  the 
requirements  of  the  civil  and  military 
situation. 

At  a  still  later  period  after  General 
Grant  had  come  to  the  head  of  military 
affairs,  had  decided  to  take  personal 
charge  of  operations  in  Virginia,  and 
was  seriously  considering  the  appoint 
ment  of  General  Smith  to  the  immedi- 


40     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


ate  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  it  became  known  to  me,  through 
a  letter  from  the  latter,  that  he  strongly 
favored  a  "powerful  movement  from  the 
lower  James  River,  or  even  from  the 
sounds  of  North  Carolina"  against  the 
interior  of  the  Confederacy.  I  was  at 
that  time  serving  in  Washington,  as  the 
Chief  of  the  Cavalry  Bureau,  and  upon 
receipt  of  the  letter  laid  it  before  General 
Rawlins,  Grant's  able  Chief  of  Staff,  but 
without  giving  it  my  concurrence  or  ap 
proval,  for  such  consideration  as  he  might 
think  best  to  give  it.  It  was  received  at 
a  juncture  when  the  selection  of  a  proper 
plan  of  operations  was  conceded  to  be 
a  matter  of  the  gravest  importance.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  plan  in 
question  did  not  receive  the  support  of 
Rawlins,  although  both  he  and  Grant, 
fresh  from  the  victory  of  Chattanooga, 
were  warm  friends  and  admirers  of  Gen 
eral  Smith  as  a  strategist.  Rawlins,  with 
unerring  instinct,  took  strong  grounds 
against  it,  for  the  reason,  as  he  vigorously 
expressed  it,  that  he  could  not  see  the 
sense  of  going  so  far,  and  taking  so  much 
time  to  find  Lee  with  a  divided  army, 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      4! 


when  he  could  be  reached  within  a  half 
day's  march  directly  to  the  front,  with 
the  entire  army  united  and  reinforced  by 
all  the  men  the  goverment  had  at  its  dis 
posal.  Knowing  that  this  was  Grant's 
argument  as  well,  I  have  always  supposed 
that  his  final  decision  to  advance  directly 
from  Culpepper  Court  House  against 
Lee's  army,  and  to  retain  Meade  in  im 
mediate  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  while  the  entire  available  force 
of  Butler's  Deparment  should  advance 
directly  from  Fort  Monroe  under  the 
immediate  command  of  General  Smith, 
was  due  partly  to  Smith's  decided  op 
position  to  the  overland  line  of  opera 
tions,  and  to  his  tenacious  adherence  to 
the  principal  features  of  the  plan  which 
he  and  Franklin  had  recommended  to 
Lincoln.  Meade's  approval  of  the  direct 
line  of  advance,  and  his  cheerful  support 
of  Grant's  plans  as  explained  in  detail, 
aided  by  Butler's  assurances  of  hearty 
co-operation,  doubtless  had  much  to  do 
with  the  retention  of  those  officers  in 
their  respective  places,  and  in  the  assign 
ment  of  Smith,  much  to  his  disappoint 
ment,  to  a  relatively  subordinate  posi- 


42    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


tion  on  the  line  he  had  so  openly  pre 
ferred.  It  may  also  account  in  some  de 
gree  for  the  failure  of  those  distinguished 
generals  to  work  as  harmoniously  with 
each  other  to  the  common  end,  as  was 
necessary  to  ensure  success. 

Before  following  this  interesting  sub 
ject  to  its  conclusion,  the  part  actually 
played  by  General  Smith  in  McClellan's 
Peninsular  Campaign  should  be  briefly 
recounted.  After  the  Army  of  the  Po 
tomac  had  been  transferred  to  the  lower 
Chesapeake,  by  water,  instead  of  landing 
at  Urbana  or  on  the  estuary  of  the  Rap- 
pahannock,  as  was  at  first  intended,  out 
of  fear  of  the  Merrimac,  which  had 
played  such  havoc  with  the  wooden  fri 
gates  of  Goldborough's  fleet,  in  Hamp 
ton  Roads,  it  was  disembarked  at  Fort 
ress  Monroe.  It  necessarily  lost  some 
time  here  before  it  could  be  reunited 
and  begin  its  march  up  the  Peninsula. 
It  had  hardly  got  well  under  way,  when 
much  to  the  disappointment  of  the 
country  it  found  itself  stopped  for  thirty 
days,  by  an  insignificant  stream  and  a 
weak  line  of  entrenchments  held  by  a 
few  guns  and  a  single  division  of  Con- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      43 


federate  Infantry,  under  the  command 
of  General  Magruder. 

The  so-called  "  Siege  of  Yorktown" 
followed,  and  General  Smith,  chafing  at 
the  delay  which  he  conceived  to  be 
unnecessary  set  about  studying  the  sit 
uation  in  his  own  front,  with  the  keen 
eye  of  an  experienced  engineer.  Hav 
ing  the  year  before  familiarized  himself 
with  the  lay  of  the  land  near  Fort 
Monroe,  he  was  quick  to  grasp  every 
condition  which  favored  an  advance.  A 
careful  reconnoissance  of  his  immediate 
front  enabled  him  to  surprise  a  crossing 
of  Warwick  River  and  to  carry  a  section 
of  the  fortified  line  beyond.  This  as 
might  have  been  expected  was  done  by 
a  detachment  of  the  Vermont  Brigade, 
which  made  a  gallant  effort  to  maintain 
the  lodgement  it  had  gained,  but  as  it 
was  not  supported  by  McClellan,  it  was 
withdrawn  after  suffering  a  loss  of  165 
men  killed,  wounded  and  missing.  This 
was  the  first  engagement  in  a  campaign 
destined  to  cost  the  lives  of  many  brave 
men  and  to  end  in  a  terrible  disaster  to 
the  national  arms. 

After  making  a  heroic  stand  and  hold- 


44    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


ing  McClellan  and  his  overwhelming 
force  at  bay  for  nearly  a  month,  Magru- 
der  abandoned  his  lines  and  fell  back  to 
Williamsburgh  on  the  road  up  the  Pen 
insula  to  Richmond.  He  was  slowly 
followed  by  McClellan's  army.  Smith's 
divison  having  crossed  the  Warwick  at 
Lee's  mill,  led  in  the  pursuit,  coming 
up  with  the  enemy  strongly  posted  in  a 
new  line  of  fortifications  covering  the 
town  of  Williamsburg.  Smith's  engi 
neering  skill  and  his  quick  intelligence 
served  him  again  most  fortunately,  and 
with  the  aid  of  Captain  West  of  the 
Coast  Survey  then  serving  on  his  staff, 
soon  enabled  him  to  find  the  weak  spot 
in  the  enemy's  position.  This  time  it 
turned  out  to  be  on  the  extreme  left, 
where  he  had  failed,  probably  through 
lack  of  troops,  to  occupy  the  extensive 
works  which  had  been  previously  con 
structed.  Realizing  intuitively  the  fu 
tility  of  a  front  attack  against  such 
entrenchments,  Smith  threw  Hancock's 
brigade  promptly  to  the  right  and  under 
cover  of  the  woods,  succeeded  without 
serious  loss  or  delay  in  occupying  one 
of  the  works  from  which,  with  his  divi- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      45 


sion  he  could  easily  have  swept  the  whole 
line  had  he  not  been  restrained  by  the 
presence  of  his  seniors. 

Unfortunately  McClellan  was  in  the 
rear,  but  Sumner  and  Heintzelman, 
corps  commanders,  were  soon  upon  the 
ground,  and  with  prudent  but  ill-timed 
conservatism  declined  to  sanction  the 
proper  movement  to  reinforce  Hancock, 
for  fear  that  it  would  bring  on  a  general 
engagement  before  the  army  could  be 
properly  closed  up  and  placed  in  posi 
tion  to  participate.  Smith  recognizing, 
the  great  advantage  certain  to  arise  from 
pushing  promptly  through  the  opening 
he  had  already  found,  besought  Sumner 
for  permission  to  go  with  the  rest  of  his 
division  to  Hancock's  assistance,  but 
this  was  also  denied.  As  other  troops 
arrived  on  the  field,  Smith  moved  to  the 
right  to  make  place  for  them,  with  the 
hope  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  con 
tinue  his  march  unobserved  till  he  had 
come  up  with  his  advanced  brigade,  but 
orders  were  sent  which  arrested  him  be 
fore  he  had  accomplished  the  object  he 
had  in  view.  All  day  long  he  was  held 
in  the  leash  with  certain  victory  in  sight. 


46     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

McClellan  arrived  on  the  field  late  in 
the  afternoon,  but  before  he  could  get  a 
satisfactory  understanding  of  the  condi 
tion  of  affairs,  night  came  on.  Conse 
quently  nothing  decisive  was  done  that 
day  and  a  great  opportunity  was  lost. 
The  wily  Magruder,  seeing  that  his  left 
had  been  turned,  and  that  his  position 
was  untenable,  abandoned  his  works 
under  cover  of  darkness  and  fell  back 
towards  Richmond.  Obviously  this  re 
sult  was  due,  first,  to  the  fortunate  dis 
covery  made  by  General  Smith  and  his 
engineer,  and  to  the  successful  turning 
movement  of  Hancock,  based  thereon; 
and,  second,  to  the  certainty  that  if  pro 
perly  reinforced  by  the  rest  of  Smith's 
division,  and  by  other  divisions,  if  nec 
essary,  as  it  surely  would  be  as  soon  as 
the  national  commander  had  come  to 
comprehend  the  real  condition  of  affairs, 
the  Confederate  forces  would  be  taken 
in  flank  and  rear  and  overwhelmed. 

This  was  Smith's  last  chance  at  any 
thing  like  independent  action.  During 
the  remainder  of  this  ill-starred  cam 
paign  he  played  the  part  of  a  subordin 
ate  division  commander,  in  a  large  army 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      47 


engaged  in  a  complicated  series  of  move 
ments  and  battles,  and  of  course  had  no 
control  over  the  general  plans  or  oper 
ations.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he 
was  ever  consulted  by  anyone  except  his 
corps  commander  Franklin  who  was 
himself  also  a  subordinate.  The  army 
lacking  field  experience,  did  not  work 
well  together  as  a  whole.  The  corps 
commanders  had  been  selected  and  ap 
pointed  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  with 
out  reference  to  McClellan's  wishes  or 
recommendations.  Several  of  them 
were  veterans,  who  received  their  assign 
ments  because  of  seniority  rather  than 
for  special  aptitudes,  and  this  naturally 
begot  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
division  commanders,who  were  generally 
younger  and  perhaps  more  ambitious 
men,  to  look  carefully  after  their  own 
troops  and  leave  larger  affairs  to  their 
seniors.  At  all  events,  Smith's  principal 
care  henceforth  was  to  handle  his  own 
division  and  look  out  exclusively  for  its 
requirements,  and  this  he  did  prudently 
and  well,  especially  during  the  Seven 
days'  battle,  and  during  the  change  of 
base  from  the  York  to  the  James  River. 


48    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


His  brigades,  led  as  I  have  pointed  out, 
by  very  able  men,  were  more  or  less 
constantly  and  successfully  engaged. 
They  took  a  most  creditable  part  in  the 
battles  of  Golding's  Farm,  Savage  Sta 
tion  and  White  Oak  Swamp. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  trying 
time  of  incessant  marching  and  fighting 
Smith  remained  watchful  and  wary,  di 
recting  his  division  through  every  peril, 
and  finally  conducting  it,  without  mate 
rial  loss,  but  with  increased  confidence 
in  itself  and  in  its  leader,  to  the  new 
base  which  had  been  selected  for  the 
army.  His  cool  and  confident  bearing, 
and  his  skillful  conduct  throughout  this 
campaign,  won  for  him  the  brevet  of 
Lieutenant  Colonel  in  the  regular  army 
and  the  rank  of  Major  General  of  Vol 
unteers. 

It  was  during  the  night  march  from 
Malvern  Hill  that  General  Smith  en 
countered  General  Fitz-John  Porter,  his 
class-mate  whom  he  always  regarded  as 
a  first-class  soldier,  and  with  whom  upon 
this  occasion  he  had  a  conversation,  the 
facts  of  which  go  far  to  justify  this  high 
estimate.  Noting  that  Porter  seemed 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   49 


greatly  depressed  he  asked  what  was  the 
matter.  In  reply,  Porter  told  him  that 
as  soon  as  he  had  become  certain  the 
evening  before  that  the  enemy  had  been 
broken  and  beaten  back  from  his  reck 
less  attack  on  the  Union  lines  at  Mal- 
vern  Hill,  and  had  withdrawn  in  dis 
order  from  the  field,  he  had  gone  to 
McClellan  on  board  the  boat  which  he 
had  occupied  with  his  headquarters,  and 
had  begged  him  with  all  the  arguments 
he  could  bring  to  bear,  and  all  the  force 
he  could  command,  to  assume  the  offen 
sive  at  dawn.  He  said  he  had  spent 
half  the  night  in  advocacy  of  this  policy, 
expressing  the  confident  belief  that  if 
adopted  it  would  result,  not  only  in  the 
destruction  of  Lee's  army,  but  in  the 
capture  of  Richmond.  He  had  no 
doubt  that  our  own  army,  encouraged 
by  the  sanguinary  repulse  it  had  finally 
inflicted  upon  the  enemy,  would  respond 
to  every  demand  which  could  be  made 
upon  it,  and  would  thus  turn  a  series 
of  indecisive  combats,  which  the  country 
would  surely  regard  as  defeats,  into  a 
magnificent  victory.  Smith's  testimony 
shows  this  splendid  conception  to  have 


5O     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


been  no  afterthought  with  Porter,  as  it 
was  with  many  who  subsequently  came 
to  understand  the  facts  of  the  case,  but 
coming  as  it  did  hot  from  a  desperate 
battle  field,  must  be  regarded  as  the  in 
spiration  of  true  military  genius,  while 
the  fact  that  McClellan  rejected  it  must 
always  be  considered  as  the  best  possi 
ble  evidence  of  his  unreadiness  to  meet 
great  emergencies.  Smith  does  not  say 
specifically  that  he  approved  it,  but 
the  context  of  his  narrative  leaves  but 
little  doubt  that  he  thought  favorably 
of  it  and  would  have  given  it  hearty 
support. 

In  the  withdrawal  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  from  the  Peninsula,  and  its 
transfer  to  Washington,  as  ordered  by 
Halleck  and  the  Secretary  of  War, 
Smith  and  his  division  necessarily  played 
a  subordinate  part.  With  the  rest  of  the 
army  they  formed  a  tardy  junction  with 
Pope  in  front  of  Washington,  and  did 
theirshare  towards  making  the  capital  safe 
and  unassailable,  but  they  were  not  again 
engaged  till  they  met  the  enemy  in  the 
bloody  and  successful  action  at  Cramp- 
ton's  Gap,  in  the  South  Mountain.  The 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   5! 


division  also  took  part  three  days  later 
in  the  battle  of  Antietam,  but  notwith 
standing  McClellan's  claim  that  the  bat 
tle  was  a  "  master  piece  of  art,"  neither 
Smith's  troops,  nor  the  corps  to  which 
they  belonged,  were  seriously  engaged. 
This  was  not  the  fault  of  either  Franklin 
or  Smith,  both  of  whom  were  greatly 
displeased  with  the  disjointed  and  irres 
olute  manner  in  which  the  Union  forces 
were  handled  and  the  battle  was  fought. 
The  most  that  can  be  said  is  that  both 
General  Smith  and  his  division  did  all 
that  was  asked  of  them,  not  only  in  the 
battle  of  Antietam,  but  in  following  Lee's 
army  back  to  Virginia.  These  opera 
tions  are  now  justly  regarded  as  reflect 
ing  but  little  credit  on  the  generalship 
by  which  the  national  army  was  con 
trolled  during  that  period  of  its  history. 
While  they  ended  McClellan's  military 
career,  they  afforded  but  little  chance 
for  any  of  his  subordinates  to  gain  dis 
tinction,  and  those  who  escaped  respon 
sibility  for  supporting  his  policy  of 
delay  had  good  reasons  to  regard  them 
selves  as  fortunate. 

The  withdrawal  of  McClellan  and  the 


52     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR SMITH 


accession  of  the  weak  and  vacillating 
Burnside  to  command  was  followed  by 
a  re-arrangement  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  into  three  grand  divisions, 
and  a  re-assignment  of  leading  generals. 
Franklin  was  placed  in  command  of  the 
Third  Grand  Division,  consisting  of  the 
First  Corps  under  General  Reynolds, 
and  the  Sixth  Corps  under  General 
Smith.  In  the  abortive  Fredericksburg 
campaign  which  followed,  these  corps 
had  the  extreme  left  of  the  Union  line, 
but  it  should  have  been  evident  from 
the  start  that  with  the  opposing  armies 
separated  by  a  broad  river  occupying  a 
deep  valley,  from  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
to  a  mile  and  a  half  between  the  opposite 
crests,  the  movement  which  was  to  bring 
on  the  battle  must  necessarily  be  fought 
under  extraordinary  disadvantages  to  the 
attacking  army.  In  the  mind  of  those 
who  were  to  carry  out  the  details  of  the 
movements,  success  must  have  seemed 
hopeless  from  the  first.  Burnside  was 
from  the  beginning  of  the  campaign 
overcome  by  the  weight  of  his  respon 
sibilities,  and  between  tears  at  one  time 
and  lack  of  sleep  at  another,  his  fatuous 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      53 


mind  failed  to  evolve  for  itself,  or  to  ac 
cept  from  others  a  definite  and  compre 
hensive  plan  of  operations.  He  seemed 
at  successive  times  to  have  had  hopes  of 
surprising  Lee,  of  breaking  his  center 
and  overwhelming  his  left,  of  seizing 
two  important  points  in  his  main  line 
of  defence  and  completely  turning  his 
left,  but  withal  it  is  certain  that  he  gave 
to  none  of  these  operations  sufficient 
attention  to  justify  the  slightest  hope 
that  it  could  be  successfully  carried  into 
effect. 

On  the  other  hand,  Lee  was  on  the 
alert  with  his  army  of  78,000  men,  well 
and  compactly  posted  in  a  commanding 
and  almost  impregnable  position  along 
the  wooded  heights  which  overlooked 
Fredericksburg  and  the  valley  of  the 
Rappahannock  from  the  south.  Burn- 
side  had  113,000  men  of  all  arms,  well 
supplied  and  thoroughly  organized,  com 
manded  by  the  ablest  generals  in  the 
service.  His  preponderance  of  force 
was  therefore  close  to  fifty  per  cent.,  but 
unfortunately  that  was  not  enough  to 
outweigh  the  natural  and  artificial  obsta 
cles,  the  heights,  stone  walls,  entrench- 


54     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


ments,  open  fields  and  river  to  be  over 
come  by  the  advancing  army.  The  task 
was  a  hopeless  one  from  the  start,  and 
to  make  matters  worse,  Burnside,  who  at 
best  had  but  a  vague  and  uncertain  com 
prehension  of  the  work  before  him,  seems 
to  have  lost  what  little  head  he  was  en 
dowed  with  before  his  operations  were 
fully  under  way. 

The  result  was  unfortunate  in  the 
extreme.  Two  Grand  Divisions  suc 
ceeded  in  crossing  the  river  without 
material  opposition,  but  at  once  found 
themselves  confronted  by  difficulties  and 
forces  they  could  not  overcome.  Frank 
lin,  in  compliance  with  his  instructions, 
took  two  days  to  get  into  position,  but 
when  his  two  corps  had  reached  the 
place  assigned  them  on  the  old  Rich 
mond  Road,  with  the  aid  of  Smith  and 
Reynolds,  he  looked  over  the  ground 
and  made  up  his  mind  that  the  only 
chance  of  victory  was  offered  by  an 
assault  upon  the  enemy's  right  center, 
with  the  full  force  of  his  two  corps, 
amounting  to  40,000  men.  Burnside, 
at  his  invitation,  came  to  that  part  of  the 
field,  and  after  listening  to  the  views 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   55 


of  the  three  generals,  either  of  whom 
was  vastly  his  superior  as  a  soldier,  ap 
proved  the  plan  and  promised  to  give  a 
written  order  for  its  execution.  Franklin 
waited  all  night  for  the  order,  telegraphed 
twice,  and  finally  sent  a  staff  officer  for 
it,  but  it  never  came.  Indeed  it  was 
never  issued  but  a  different  order  di 
recting  him  to  seize  the  heights  at 
Hamilton's  House,  nearly  three  miles 
from  his  right  division,  and  to  keep  the 
whole  of  his  command  in  readiness  to 
move  at  once,  was  sent  instead.  Sumner 
received  an  order  equally  inane,  in  refer 
ence  to  Marye's  Heights.  The  result 
ing  operations  which  should  have  been 
carefully  co-ordinated  and  vigorously 
supported,  were  weak  and  indecisive. 
As  the  day  wore  away  Lee  took  advan 
tage  of  the  delays  and  the  opportunities 
which  they  offered  him,  and  assumed 
the  offensive.  There  was  much  severe 
but  desultory  and  disconnected  fighting. 
The  Union  generals  with  their  officers 
and  men  did  their  best,  but  Burnside 
was  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  and 
could  neither  give  intelligent  orders  nor 
act  promptly  upon  the  suggestions  which 


56     GENERAL  WTLLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


were  sent  to  him  from  the  field.  There 
was  no  chance  for  maneuvering.  It  was 
from  the  first  head-on,  face-to-face  fight 
ing  with  no  hope  of  victory  for  the  as 
sailants.  The  Union  losses  were  over 
12,500  men  killed,  wounded  and  miss 
ing,  of  which  4,962  belonged  to  Frank 
lin's  Grand  Division,  while  Jackson's 
corps  which  confronted  him  lost  5,364. 

A  full  description  of  this  mid-winter 
campaign  would  be  out  of  place  in  this 
sketch,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the 
abortive  Mud  Campaign  six  weeks  later, 
which  had  for  its  object  the  passage  of  the 
Rappahannock  by  a  movement  above 
Fredericksburg.  Both  Franklin  and 
Smith  took  part  in  this  ill  planned  and 
poorly  executed  undertaking.  The 
weather  and  the  roads  were  against  it, 
and  it  soon  came  to  an  end  quite  as  pit 
iful,  though  not  so  costly,  as  its  prede 
cessor. 

Following  these  failures,  Burnside,  in 
futile  desperation,  prepared  an  order 
relieving  Franklin,  Smith  and  several 
other  officers  of  inferior  rank  from  duty, 
and  dismissing  Hooker,  Brooks,  New 
ton  and  Cochrane  from  the  service.  He 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       57 


made  no  further  charge  against  these 
officers  than  that  they  had  no  confidence 
in  himself,  and  this  much  was  probably 
true,  but  it  would  have  been  equally  as 
true  of  any  other  generals  serving  at  that 
time  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  The 
President,  instead  of  approving  the  or 
der,  it  should  be  noted,  at  once  relieved 
Burnside  and  assigned  Hooker  to  the 
command.  Sumner  and  Franklin  both 
of  whom  outranked  Hooker  were  re 
lieved  from  further  service  with  that 
army,  while  Smith  was  transferred  to  the 
command  of  the  Ninth  Corps,  which 
he  held  but  a  short  time,  owing  to  the 
failure  of  the  Senate  to  confirm  him  as 
a  major  general.  This  was  doubtless 
brought  about  by  misrepresentation, 
made  to  the  Senate  committee  on  the 
Conduct  of  the  War,  but  as  the  action 
of  the  Senate  and  its  committees  in  ref 
erence  to  confirmations  were  secret,  no 
correct  explanation  can  now  be  given  of 
the  allegations  against  Smith,  though 
they  were  generally  attributed  at  the 
time  to  Burnside  and  his  friends,  and 
while  they  were  neither  properly  inves 
tigated  nor  supported,  they  resulted  in 


58    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


reducing  Smith  to  the  rank  of  brigadier 
general  and  depriving  him  of  the  high 
command  which  he  would  have  other 
wise  continued  to  hold. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  before  these 
changes  were  made,  and  while  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  was  still  floundering  in 
the  mud  under  the  inefficient  command 
of  Burnside,  Franklin  and  Smith  joined 
in  the  letter  previously  referred  to, 
advising  the  President  to  abandon  the 
line  on  which  the  Army  was  then  ope 
rating,  with  such  ill  success,  and  after 
reinforcing  it  to  the  fullest  extent,  to 
send  it  back  again  to  the  line  of  the 
James  River.  This  letter  was  doubtless 
written  in  entire  good  faith,  but  at  a  time 
when  it  seemed  to  be  impossible  for  the 
government,  even  if  it  had  so  desired, 
to  carry  out  its  recommendations.  Its 
only  immediate  effect  was  to  arouse  the 
antagonism  of  Mr.  Stanton  against  these 
two  able  officers,  and  to  deprive  the 
country  for  a  while  of  their  services.  A 
wiser  and  more  temperate  Secretary  of 
War  would  have  filed  and  ignored  it,  or 
sent  for  the  officers  and  explained  why 
he  deemed  their  advice  to  be  impracti- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      59 


cable  at  that  time.  That,  however,  was 
not  Mr.  Stanton's  way.  Although  in 
tensely  patriotic  and  in  earnest,  he  was 
imperious  and  overbearing  both  to  high 
and  low  alike,  and  preferred  to  banish 
and  offend  rather  than  to  listen  and 
conciliate. 

The  winter  of  1862-3  is  now  by  com 
mon  consent  regarded  as  the  darkest 
period  of  the  war  for  the  Union.  The 
failure  of  Burnside's  plans  and  the  defeat 
of  Hooker  at  Chancellorsville  severely 
tried  the  discipline  and  organization  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  filled  the 
loyal  North  with  alarm,  while  it  corre 
spondingly  encouraged  the  Confederate 
government  and  raised  the  confidence  of 
its  army.  As  soon  as  the  winter  was  over 
and  the  roads  were  settled  Lee  assumed 
the  initiative,  drove  Hooker  back  from 
the  Rappahannock,  crossed  the  Poto 
mac,  advanced  confidently  to  Chambers- 
burg  and  pushed  his  cavalry  as  far  north 
as  Harrisburg  and  York. 

Hooker  had  also  proven  himself  to 
be  incompetent,  and  desperate  as  the 
measure  was,  the  Washington  govern 
ment  relieved  him  in  the  midst  of  an 


60     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


active  campaign,  and  entrusted  the  army 
and  its  fortunes  to  the  direction  of  Major 
General  George  G.  Meade,  a  gallant  and 
able  soldier,  who  checked  the  high  tide 
of  rebellion  at  Gettysburg  on  the  2nd 
and  3rd  of  July,  1863.  During  this 
campaign  Smith,  who  was  on  leave  of 
absence  when  it  began,  made  haste  to 
offer  his  services,  without  conditions,  and 
was  at  once  sent  to  Harrisburg  to  assist 
Major  General  Couch,  who  had  been 
assigned  to  the  command  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  and  New  York  militia.  Taking 
command  of  an  improvised  division, 
he  moved  against  the  enemy,  then 
threatening  Carlisle,  with  all  the  assur 
ance  of  a  veteran,  and  while  the  prompt 
retreat  of  the  enemy  prevented  any 
severe  engagement,  the  movement  was 
entirely  efficacious.  With  the  true  in 
stincts  of  a  soldier  he  pressed  on  in  the 
direction  of  the  Confederate  army,  and 
took  part  in  its  pursuit  from  Gettysburg 
back  to  Virginia.  Curiously  enough, 
instead  of  commending  and  thanking 
him  and  his  raw  troops  for  their  gallant 
services,  the  Secretary  of  War  ordered 
his  arrest  for  taking  his  command  be- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      6  I 


yond  the  limits  of  Pennsylvania,  for  the 
special  defence  of  which  the  militia  had 
been  called  out,  but  fortunately  the  re 
monstrance  of  General  Couch  caused  this 
order  to  be  recalled,  and  the  gallant  but 
unappreciated  general  again  withdrew 
from  the  field,  as  soon  as  the  scare  was 
over  and  his  forces  were  permitted  to 
return  to  their  homes. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  news 
of  Lee's  defeat  and  his  retreat  from 
Gettysburg  reached  the  country  on  the 
4th  of  July,  and  that  the  same  day  was 
made  triply  memorable  by  the  capture 
of  Vicksburg  with  Pemberton's  entire 
army  of  30,000  men  with  all  their  guns 
and  ammunitions.  These  two  striking 
events  threw  the  country  into  the  wildest 
enthusiasm.  Even  the  most  despond 
ent  now  became  confident  that  the 
Southern  Confederacy  would  soon  be 
destroyed,  and  that  the  triumphant 
Union  would  be  finally  re-established. 
But  this  confidence  was  destined  to  be 
rudely  shaken. 

Later  in  the  summer,  taking  advant 
age  of  the  lull  in  operations  elsewhere, 
the  Confederate  leaders  sent  Longstreet's 


62     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR SMITH 

splendid  corps  of  veterans  from  Vir 
ginia,  and  that  part  of  Johnston's  army 
which  had  been  paroled,  together  with 
such  detachments  as  could  be  got  from 
Alabama,  to  reinforce  Bragg,  who  had 
been  driven  by  Rosecrans  from  Middle 
Tennessee  to  Northern  Georgia.  Turn 
ing  fiercely  upon  his  over-confident  pur 
suer,  as  soon  as  his  reinforements  were  at 
hand,  Bragg  struck  a  staggering  blow  at 
Chickamauga,  which  not  only  came  near 
giving  Chattanooga  back  to  him,  but 
filled  the  northern  states  with  consterna 
tion.  The  war  was  not  only  not  ended, 
but  had  burst  forth  with  renewed  vigor. 
Reinforcements  in  large  numbers  were 
hurried  forward  from  all  parts  of  the 
country  to  Chattanooga.  Hooker,  with 
Howard's  and  Slocum's  corps,  was  sent 
out  by  rail  from  Virginia,  while  the 
greater  part  of  Grant's  Army  of  the 
Tennessee  was  withdrawn  from  the  lower 
Mississippi,  where  it  was  resting  after 
the  capture  of  Vicksburg,  and  marched 
over-land  from  Memphis  to  the  same 
place.  The  separate  departments  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley  were  consolidated 
into  a  military  grand  division,  under  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      63 

supreme  command  of  General  Grant, 
and  what  turned  out  to  be  of  almost 
equal  importance  was  the  fact  that  Brig 
adier  General  William  F.  Smith  was 
relieved  from  service  in  West  Virginia, 
where  he  had  been  recently  assigned  to 
duty,  and  sent  to  contribute  his  part 
towards  strengthening  the  national  grasp 
upon  the  vast  region  of  which  Chatta 
nooga  was  justly  considered  the  strategic 
center. 

Whatever  the  government  at  that 
time  may  have  thought  of  him  as  a  com 
mander  of  troops,  it  is  certain  that  it 
was  willing  to  recognize  and  use  his  ex 
perience  and  marked  intellectual  resour 
ces  as  an  engineer  officer  to  their  fullest 
extent.  As  it  turned  out,  it  could  not 
have  paid  him  a  greater  compliment,  nor 
given  him  a  better  opportunity  for  dis 
tinction.  His  fame  had  gone  before 
him,  and  on  his  arrival  at  Chattanooga, 
although  he  preferred  the  command  of 
troops,  he  was  assigned  at  once  to  duty 
as  Chief  Engineer  of  the  Department 
and  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  For 
tunately  this  gave  him  the  control,  not 
only  of  the  engineer  troops  and  mate- 


64     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


rials,  and  the  engineer  operations  of  that 
army,  but  carried  with  it  the  right  and 
duty  of  knowing  the  army's  condition 
and  requirements  as  well  as  all  the  plans 
which  might  be  considered  for  extricat 
ing  it  from  the  extraordinary  perils  and 
difficulties  which  surrounded  it. 

Although  efforts  have  been  made  at 
various  times  and  by  various  writers,  to 
minimize  these  perils  and  difficulties,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  situation  of 
that  army  was  at  that  epoch  an  exceed 
ingly  grave  one.  It  had  been  rudely 
checked,  if  not  completely  beaten,  in 
one  of  the  most  desperate  and  bloody 
battles  of  the  war,  and  shut  up  in  Chat 
tanooga  by  Bragg's  army  on  the  south, 
and  by  an  almost  impassable  mountain 
region  on  the  north  and  west.  Its  com 
munication  by  rail  with  its  secondary 
base  at  Bridgeport,  and  with  its  primary 
base  at  Nashville,  had  been  broken  by 
the  Confederate  cavalry  and  rendered 
most  uncertain.  Its  supplies  were  scanty 
and  growing  daily  less,  while  its  artillery 
horses  and  draft  mules  were  dying  by 
hundreds,  for  lack  of  forage.  The  only 
safe  wagon  roads  to  the  rear  were  by  a 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      65 


long  and  circuitous  route  through  the 
mountains  north  of  the  Tennessee  River, 
which  was  besides  so  rough  and  muddy 
that  the  teams  could  haul  hardly  enough 
for  their  own  subsistence,  much  less  an 
adequate  supply  for  the  troops. 

All  the  contemporary  accounts  go  to 
show  that  Rosecrans,  while  personally 
brave  enough,  was  himself  more  or  less 
confused  and  excited  by  the  great  disaster 
which  had  overtaken  his  army  at  Chick- 
amauga.  He  had  been  cut  off  and  greatly 
shaken  by  the  overthrow  of  his  right 
wing,  and  consequently  retired  with  it 
to  Chattanooga.  Notwithstanding  this 
unfortunate  withdrawal  and  his  failure  to 
rejoin  the  organized  portion  of  his  army, 
which  under  General  George  H.Thomas, 
held  on  firmly  to  its  position  against 
every  attack,  those  who  knew  Rosecrans 
best  still  believed  him  to  be  a  most  loyal 
and  gallant  gentleman  who  was  anxious 
and  willing  to  do  all  that  could  be  done 
to  save  his  army  and  maintain  its  ad 
vanced  position.  But  there  is  no  satis 
factory  evidence  that  up  to  the  time  he 
turned  over  his  command  to  his  succes 
sor,  he  had  formed  any  adequate  or  com- 


66     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


prehensive  plan  for  supplying  it  or 
getting  it  ready  to  resume  the  offensive. 
Every  general  in  it  knew  that  it  needed 
and  must  have  supplies,  and  that  the 
only  way  to  get  them,  without  falling 
back,  was  to  open  and  keep  open  the 
direct  road  or  "cracker  line"  to  Bridge 
port.  But  how  and  when  this  was  to 
be  done  was  the  great  question. 

Much  has  been  written  upon  this  sub 
ject;  a  military  commission  has  had  it 
under  consideration ;  the  records  have 
been  consulted;  a  report  has  been  made, 
and  comments  upon  it  have  been  issued 
by  General  Smith  and  his  friends.  Even 
the  late  Secretary  of  War,  Elihu  Root, 
has  passed  judgment  upon  it,  and  yet  it 
can  be  safely  said  that  nothing  has  been 
done  to  disturb  the  conclusion  reached 
at  the  time,  that  General  Smith  in  con 
sultation  with  his  superiors  worked  out 
the  plan  as  to  how,  when  and  by  what 
means  the  short  supply  line  by  the  way 
of  Brown's  Ferry  and  the  Lookout  Val 
ley  should  be  opened  and  maintained. 
He  certainly  secured  its  adoption  first 
by  Thomas  and  afterwards  by  Grant,  and 
finally  when  he  had  arranged  all  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      6j 

details  of  the  complicated  and  delicate 
operations,  and  had  prepared  all  engi 
neer's  materials  and  pontoons  which 
were  required,  he  personally  commanded 
the  troops  and  carried  that  part  of  the 
plan  which  was  based  on  Chattanooga, 
to  a  successful  conclusion. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  Rose- 
crans  had  left  Chattanooga,  that  he  had 
been  succeeded  by  Thomas,  and  that 
Grant  himself  had  arrived  on  the  ground 
and  assumed  supreme  command,  before 
the  first  practical  step  had  been  taken  to 
carry  the  plan  into  effect,  and  that  the 
plan  itself  involved  a  descent  and  pass 
age  of  the  Tennessee  River  by  night, 
the  defeat  and  capture  of  the  enemy's 
outposts,  the  laying  of  a  pontoon  bridge 
across  a  broad  and  rapid  river,  the  re 
building  of  the  railroad,  and  its  main 
tenance  within  easy  reach  of  the  enemy's 
front  for  twenty-five  miles,  and  that  all 
of  this  was  done  without  the  slightest 
mishap  and  with  but  little  loss,  and  that 
it  resulted  in  relieving  the  army  from 
want  and  inputting  it  in  condition  to  re 
sume  the  offensive  as  soon  as  its  rein 
forcements  had  arrived,  some  fair  idea 


68     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


may  be  had  of  the  value  of  General 
Smith's  services  and  the  part  he  actually 
performed  in  all  that  took  place.  If 
General  Rosecrans  had  actually  con 
ceived  and  worked  out  all  the  details  of 
the  plan,  which  cannot  be  successfully 
claimed,  there  would  still  be  enough  left 
to  the  credit  of  General  Smith  to  im 
mortalize  him,  but  when  Grant,  Thomas 
and  all  the  other  officers  who  were  pres 
ent  and  in  position  to  know  what  was 
actualy  done  gave  Smith  the  praise,  not 
only  for  conceiving  it,  but  carrying  the 
plan  into  successful  effect,  there  is  but 
little  room  left  for  further  controversy. 
If  any  additional  testimony  is  needed 
as  to  the  masterful  part  played  by  Smith 
at  Chattanooga,  it  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
Grant  made  haste  to  attach  him  to  his 
own  staff  and  to  recommend  him  for  pro 
motion  to  the  grade  of  major-general  to 
take  rank  from  the  date  of  his  original 
appointment,  declaring  in  support  of  his 
recommendation  that  he  felt  "  under 
more  than  ordinary  obligations  for  the 
masterly  manner  in  which  he  discharged 
the  duties  of  his  position."  Later  he 
recommended  that  Smith  be  put  first  of 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       69 

all  the  army  on  the  list  for  promotion, 
adding :  "  He  is  possessed  of  one  of  the 
clearest  military  heads  in  the  army,  is 
very  practical  and  industrious,"  and  em 
phasized  it  all  with  the  highly  eulogistic 
declaration  that  "no  man  in  the  army  is 
better  qualified  than  he  for  the  largest 
military  commands." 

It  is  noteworthy  that  about  the  same 
time  General  Butler  with  whom  he  had 
served  for  a  short  season,  made  an  appli 
cation  to  have  General  Smith  re-assigned 
to  his  command,  but  the  Secretary  of 
War,  having  evidently  forgotten  his  or 
der  for  Smith's  arrest  at  the  close  of  the 
Gettysburg  campaign,  wrote  :  "  The 
services  of  William  F.  Smith,  now  Chief 
Engineer  in  the  Army  of  the  Cumber 
land,  are  indispensible  in  that  command, 
and  it  will  be  impossible  to  assign  him 
to  your  Department."  But  this  was  not 
all.  General  George  H.  Thomas,  the 
soul  of  honor  and  fair  dealing  on  the  2Oth 
of  November,  1863,  although  General 
Smith  had  already  been  transferred  from 
his  own  to  the  staff  of  General  Grant, 
formally  recommended  him  for  promo 
tion  in  the  following  striking  and  com- 


JO     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


prehensive  words  :  "  For  industry  and 
energy  displayed  by  him  from  the  time 
of  his  reporting  for  duty  at  these  head 
quarters,  in  organizing  the  Engineer 
Department,  and  for  his  skillful  execu 
tion  of  the  movements  at  Brown's  Ferry, 
Tennessee,  on  the  night  of  October  26th, 
i  863,  in  surprising  the  enemy  and  throw 
ing  a  pontoon  bridge  acroos  the  Tennes 
see  River  at  that  point,  a  vitally  import 
ant  service  necessary  to  the  opening  of 
communications  between  Bridgeport  and 
Chattanooga." 

Certainly  no  language  could  be  more 
clear  and  unequivocal  than  this,  and  yet, 
as  though  General  Thomas  wished  to 
remove  all  chance  of  doubt  as  to  whom 
the  highest  credit  was  due,  he  declared 
in  a  later  and  more  formal  official  report: 
"To  Brigadier  General  William  F.  Smith, 
Chief  Engineer,  should  be  accorded  great 
praise  for  the  ingenuity  which  conceived 
and  the  ability  which  executed  the  move 
ments  at  Brown's  Ferry."  While  even 
the  best  memory  so  long  after  the  event 
is  but  little  to  be  depended  upon  for 
details,  it  may  serve  especially  when  sup 
plementing  the  records,  to  strengthen 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      Jl 


the  conclusions  therefrom.  In  this  in 
stance  it  should  be  stated  that  it  was  per 
fectly  well  known  to  the  late  Charles  A. 
Dana,  then  present  at  Chattanooga  as 
Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and  also  to 
myself,  who  was  serving  at  the  time  on 
General  Grant's  staff  as  Inspector  Gen 
eral,  and  was  in  daily  contact  with  all  the 
leading  officers,  that  it  was  General 
Smith,  and  General  Smith  alone,  who 
conceived  and  carried  out  the  plan  actu 
ally  used  for  the  capture  of  Brown's 
Ferry  and  the  re-establishment  of  the 
direct  line  of  communication  between 
Chattanooga  and  Bridgeport.  Indeed, 
there  was  no  question  in  that  army,  or 
at  that  time,  in  regard  to  the  matter. 
Rosecrans  was  never  mentioned  in  con 
nection  with  it,  while  Smith's  praise  was 
in  everybody's  mouth  till  the  close  of 
the  campaign,  not  only  for  the  Brown's 
Ferry  movement,  but,  what  was  still 
more  important,  for  the  plan  of  opera 
tions  against  Bragg's  position  on  Mis 
sionary  Ridge.  He  it  was  who  person 
ally  familiarized  himself  with  the  terrain 
in  the  entire  field  of  operations,  which, 
with  the  mountains,  valleys,  rivers  and 


J1     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

creeks,  that  gave  it  its  unique  character, 
was  the  most  complicated  and  difficult 
one  of  the  entire  war,  if  not  the  most 
complicated  and  difficult  one  upon  which 
a  great  battle  was  ever  fought.  It  was 
he  alone  who  worked  out  every  detail 
of  the  combinations  and  movements  by 
which  the  great  victory  of  Missionary 
Ridge  was  won.  I  state  this  upon  my 
own  knowledge  and  not  upon  hearsay. 
Moreover,  it  was  conceded  by  all  in 
high  command  that  Smith  was  easily  the 
leading  strategist  in  that  entire  host.  He 
knew  all  the  details  of  the  ground  and 
all  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  better 
than  any  other  man.  He  studied  them 
more  closely,  and  with  more  intelligence 
than  any  other  man,  not  only  because  it 
was  his  duty  to  do  so,  but  because  he 
was  conscious  of  the  portentous  fact 
now  so  commonly  lost  sight  of  that  the 
safety  and  success  of  the  army  depended 
upon  the  discovery  and  adoption  of  a 
feasible  plan  of  action.  Grant,  the  gen 
eralissimo,  had  neither  the  time  nor  op 
portunity  to  gather  the  facts.  He  was 
neither  an  engineer  nor  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  a  close  calculator  of  the  chances. 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      73 


He  necessarily  depended  upon  the  Chief 
Engineer,  and  the  criticism  which  was 
sure  to  come  from  others,  to  gather  and 
sift  the  data  upon  which  final  action  must 
be  based.  Thomas  was  there  from  the 
first,  able,  methodical  and  invincible,  a 
great  field  tactician,  but  not  specially 
distinguished  for  his  knowledge  of  engi 
neering,  grand  tactics  or  strategy.  Sher 
man  came  afterwards.  He  was  bold, 
active  and  energetic,  and  had  a  fine  eye 
for  topography.  He  knew  as  well  as 
anyone  what  could  be  done  and  what 
could  not  be  done  by  an  army,  but  he 
came  too  late  to  take  part  in  the  original 
investigations,  or  to  do  anything  more 
than  to  accept  the  part  assigned  to  him, 
and  from  an  examination  of  the  ground 
say  whether  or  not  he  could  carry  it  out. 
The  important  fact  is  that  Smith  was,  be 
yond  any  question,  the  first  mind  among 
them  all  for  working  out  just  such  prob 
lems  as  confronted  the  leaders  of  the 
Union  army  at  Chattanooga,and  that  task 
was  by  common  consent  assigned  to  him. 
The  responsibility  was  Grant's.  His 
judgment  and  resolution  must  necessarily 
decide  and  execute,  but  it  was  Smith's 


74    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


place  to  gather  the  facts  and  work  out  the 
details  of  one  of  the  most  complicated 
military  problems  that  was  ever  presented 
for  solution,  and  it  can  hardly  be  too 
much  to  say  that  he  discharged  his  task 
with  such  patience,  skill  and  success  as 
to  justly  entitle  himself  to  be  known  in 
history  as  the  Strategist  of  Chattanooga. 
Were  his  distinguished  associates  living, 
it  cannot  be  doubted  they  would  will 
ingly  concede  that  honor  to  him.  In 
their  official  reports  and  correspondence 
at  the  time  they  went  far  beyond  the 
usual  limit  to  give  him  praise,  and 
although  Grant  finally  withdrew  his 
friendship  from  him,  for  reasons  which 
will  be  given  hereafter,  he  never  in  the 
slightest  degree  withdrew  or  modified  the 
praise  he  had  awarded  him  for  his  servi 
ces  in  the  Chattanooga  campaign. 

But  to  return  to  the  details  of  the 
plan  of  operations.  It  was  Smith  who 
discovered  the  possibility  of  turning 
Bragg's  position  on  Missionary  Ridge, 
by  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  After 
personal  examination  of  the  lay  of  the 
ground  he  suggested  that  Sherman's 
army  coming  up  from  Bridgeport  through 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   75 


LookoutValley  should  cross  to  the  north 
side  of  the  Tennessee  by  the  bridge 
at  Brown's  Ferry,  and  after  passing  to 
the  east  side  of  Moccasin  Point,  under 
cover  of  the  woods,  to  a  position  oppo 
site  the  mouth  of  Chickamauga  Creek, 
should  re-cross  the  Tennessee  River,  by 
a  bridge  to  be  thrown  under  cover  of 
darkness,  and  land  on  the  end  of  Mis 
sionary  Ridge  with  the  obvious  purpose 
of  marching  along  the  Ridge  and  rolling 
up  and  destroying  Bragg's  army,  or 
taking  it  in  reverse  and  driving  it  from 
its  line  of  supply  and  retreat.  As  early 
as  the  8th  of  November,  Mr.  Dana, 
writing  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  speaks 
of  a  reconnoissance  made  by  Thomas, 
Smith  and  Brannan  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river  to  a  point  opposite  the 
mouth  of  Citico  Creek,  near  the  head  of 
Missionary  Ridge,  which  he  thought  at 
that  time  "proved  Smith's  plan  of  at 
tack  impractical."  But  further  investi 
gation  proved  that  a  passage  could  be 
made  higher  up  the  river,  and  when  Sher 
man  was  taken  to  the  place  that  had 
been  selected,  examining  both  the  place 
for  the  bridge  and  its  approaches,  on 


76     GENERALWTLLTAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


both  sides  of  the  river,  with  his  usual 
care,  he  closed  his  field  glasses  with  a 
snap  and  turning  to  Smith  said  with 
emphasis:  "  Baldy,  it  can  be  done  !" 

And  so  much  of  it  as  referred  to  the 
passage  of  the  river  was  done  without 
halt  or  fault,  just  as  it  had  been  planned. 
Sherman's  entire  army,  except  his  rear 
division  that  had  been  cut  off  by  a  break 
in  the  Brown's  Ferry  floating  bridge,  was 
brought  upon  the  field  just  in  the  way 
suggested  and  by  the  means  which  had 
been  provided  by  General  Smith.  I  as 
sisted  in  transferring  the  troops  to  the 
South  bank  of  the  river  at  the  point  of 
crossing,  by  the  use  of  the  river  steamer 
"  Dunbar,"  which  had  been  put  under 
my  command  so  as  to  make  certain  that 
a  sufficient  force  should  be  on  the  ground 
in  time  to  cover  the  construction  of  the 
bridge.  The  bridge  was  laid  successfully 
and  the  army  was  transferred  without 
delay.  Every  stage  of  the  movement 
pointed  to  an  onward  and  victorious 
march  against  Bragg's  commanding 
position,  and  a  complete  victory  was 
finally  achieved,  but  much  to  the  sur 
prise  and  disappointment  of  all,  it  was 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      77 

not  attained  at  the  time  nor  in  the  way 
that  had  been  expected.  The  prear 
ranged  plan,  so  far  as  it  concerns  Sher 
man's  army,  had  no  other  legitimate 
purpose  than  to  land  it  on  Bragg's  ex 
posed  right  flank  and  double  him  up  or 
drive  him  from  his  regular  line  of  supply 
and  retreat.  And  there  is  nothing  more 
certain  than  that  there  was  no  man  in 
authority  on  either  side  who  intended 
the  battle  to  be  fought  as  it  was  actually 
fought,  nor  who  seriously  expected  the 
victory  to  be  won  in  the  way  it  finally 
was  won  by  Thomas's  army,  and  not  by 
Sherman's. 

It  is  here  worthy  of  remark  that  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  both  Grant 
and  Sherman  believed  and  contended — 
in  fact  both  died  in  the  belief — that 
Sherman's  lodgement  on  the  foot-hills 
at  the  north  end  of  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  his  unsuccessful  attack  from  that 
place,  caused  Bragg  to  so  weaken  his 
center  by  withdrawing  troops  from  his 
center  and  left,  to  resist  Sherman,  that 
Thomas  met  with  but  little  resistance 
when  he  advanced  to  the  attack  about 
ten  hours  later,  in  obedience  to  Grant's 


78  GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


personal  order.  But  it  has  been  shown 
by  irrefutable  testimony,  and  is  now 
conceded,  that  there  is  not  a  word  of 
truth  in  this  supposition — "that  nothing 
of  the  kind  occurred,"  and  that  in  face  of 
all  statements  and  suppositions  to  the 
contrary,  however  natural  they  may  have 
seemed  at  the  time,  "not  a  single  regi 
ment,  nor  a  single  piece  of  artillery," 
not  even  "a  single  Confederate  soldier 
was  withdrawn  from  Thomas's  front  to 
Sherman's  on  the  final  day  of  the  battle. 
All  the  Confederate  reports  are  clear  and 
specific  on  that  point." 

The  simple  fact  is  that  the  plan  of  op 
erations  for  Sherman  were  clear  and  per 
fect,  and  they  were  carried  out  in  their 
initial  stage  without  fault  or  accident, 
but  their  execution  in  the  final  and  vital 
stage  was  marred  by  Sherman  himself 
or  by  his  subordinates,  who  never  reached 
the  point  from  which  they  could  strike  a 
fatal  blow,  or  from  which  they  could 
have  taken  possession  of  Bragg's  com 
munications  with  the  rear. 

That  Sherman  was  entirely  satisfied 
with  Smith's  part  in  carrying  out  the 
plan,  is  shown  beyond  dispute  by  his  re- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      79 


port,  which  bears  "  willing  testimony  to 
the  completeness  of  this  whole  business. 
All  the  officers  charged  with  the  work 
were  present  and  manifested  a  skill  which 
I  cannot  praise  too  highly.  I  have  never 
beheld  any  work  done  so  quietly,  so  well, 
and  I  doubt  if  the  history  of  war  can 
show  a  bridge  of  *  *  1350  feet,  laid 
down  so  noiselessly  and  well  in  so  short 
a  time.  I  attribute  it  to  the  genius  and  in 
telligence  of  General  William  F.  Smith." 
The  genuineness  of  this  praise  is  strik 
ingly  attested  by  General  Grant,  who 
almost  immediately  after  the  battle  again 
urged  the  Secretary  of  War  to  give  Smith 
the  promotion  which  he  had  previously 
recommended.  Unmistakably  referring 
to  the  part  taken  by  Smith  in  making 
and  carrying  out  the  plans  which  had 
yielded  such  notable  results,  he  wrote, 
among  other  things :  "  Recent  events 
have  entirely  satisfied  me  of  his  great 
capabilities  and  merits.  I  hasten  to  re 
new  the  recommendation  and  to  urge  it." 
Shortly  afterwards  Grant  followed 
this  letter  by  another  asking  for  Smith's 
assignment  to  the  command  of  East 
Tennessee,  to  succeed  the  luckless  Burn- 


80  GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


side,  with  whom  he  was  dissatisfied,  but 
in  so  doing  he  intimated  that  it  would 
be  agreeable  to  him  if  the  government 
should,  in  pursuance  of  a  personal  sug 
gestion  sent  to  the  War  Darpartment 
about  the  same  time  by  Mr.  Dana,  give 
General  Smith  even  a  higher  command. 
It  is  now  well  known  that  Grant  had  in 
mind  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  not  only  then,  but  fre 
quently  afterwards,  assured  General 
Smith  of  his  support  for  that  great 
position. 

The  friendship  of  Grant,  Sherman 
and  Thomas,  for  Smith,  was  at  that  time 
genuine  and  unmistakable.  Neither  of 
these  great  generals  had  ever  served 
with  him  before.  He  was  a  comparative 
stranger  to  them,  and  that  he  should 
have  come  amongst  them  from  the  East 
under  a  cloud  as  he  did,  and  should  in 
less  than  two  months  have  won  such  un 
usual  praise  and  recommendations  is 
stronger  testimony  than  their  words 
themselves  to  the  masterful  part  he  had 
played  at  Chattanooga,  and  in  recogni 
tion  of  which  the  President  made  haste 
to  promote  him  again  to  the  rank  of 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      8l 


Major  General,  at  that  time  the  highest 
grade  in  the  service.  It  is  to  be  regret 
ted,  however,  that  the  vacancy  made  by 
his  previous  non-confirmation,  having 
long  since  been  filled,  and  opposition 
having  arisen  on  the  part  of  other  gen 
erals  already  promoted  and  confirmed, 
the  President  did  not  feel  justified  in 
dating  his  new  commission  back  to  the 
date  of  his  original  appointment.  The 
action  of  the  President,  the  Secretary  of 
War,  who  concurred  in  it,  and  the  Sen 
ate  which  acted  upon  it,  this  time  with 
out  reference  to  the  military  committee, 
set  the  seal  of  government  approval  in 
the  most  signal  manner  upon  the  serv 
ices  and  abilities  of  General  Smith.  No 
subsequent  action  or  criticism  can  de 
prive  him  of  the  great  praise  and  un 
usual  honors  which  were  then  bestowed 
upon  him. 

But  a  new  and  far  less  fortunate  era 
was  about  to  open  upon  General  Smith's 
career.  Grant's  work  in  the  west  had 
reached  its  close,  and  his  extraordinary 
success  had  secured  for  him  the  full  rank 
of  Lieutenant  General,  with  the  com 
mand  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United 


82    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


States.  It  at  once  became  known  to  me, 
and  to  others  serving  at  that  time  on 
his  staff,  that  it  was  from  the  first,  and 
till  he  went  east  to  take  charge  of  his 
new  duties,  Grant's  intention  to  assign 
Smith  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  He  had  come  to  trust  his 
intelligence,  his  judgment  and  his  ex 
traordinary  coup  d'oeil  implicitly,  and  to 
regard  him  as  a  strategist  of  consummate 
ability.  He  made  no  concealment  of 
his  confidence  in  him,  nor  of  his  inten 
tions  in  his  behalf,  and  there  can  be  but 
little  doubt  that  he  would  have  carried 
those  intentions  into  effect  could  he  have 
done  so  without  injustice  to  others.  But 
it  is  also  true  that  after  going  to  the 
eastern  theatre  of  war  and  conferring 
with  the  President,  Secretary  Stanton, 
General  Meade  and  General  Butler,  the 
Lieutenant  General  completely  changed 
his  mind,  not  only  as  to  the  proper  plan 
of  campaign  for  the  army  of  the  Potomac, 
which  he  had  not  previously  visited  or 
studied,  but  as  to  the  disposition  to  be 
made  of  Smith  and  the  other  leading 
generals.  In  all  this  he  had  the  saga 
cious  advice  and  support  of  General 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       83 


Rawlins,  his  Chief  of  Staff,  and  doubt 
less  of  other  influential  persons.  Exactly 
why  he  did  so,  or  what  were  the  details 
of  the  argument  which  brought  him  to 
his  final  conclusions,  is  still  one  of  the 
most  interesting  unsettled  questions  of 
the  war.  The  general  argument  has 
already  been  indicated  in  the  compre 
hensive  language  of  Rawlins  and  that 
was  doubtless  strengthened  by  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  whose  homely  but  astute  reasoning 
convinced  him  that  the  better  and  safer 
line  of  operations  was  overland  against 
Lee's  army  wherever  it  might  be  en 
countered,  and  not  through  a  widely 
eccentric  movement  by  water  to  a  sec 
ondary  base  on  the  James  River  and 
thence  against  Richmond. 

It  is  also  doubtless  true  that  finding 
Meade,  who  had  shown  himself  to  be  a 
prudent  and  safe  commander,  if  not  a 
brilliant  one,  not  only  favorable  to  the 
overland  route,  but  deservedly  well 
thought  of  by  the  President,  the  cabinet 
and  the  army,  while  Smith,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  not  openly  opposed  to  this  plan 
of  operations,  was  somewhat  persistent 
as  was  his  custom,  in  favoring  a  campaign 


84     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR SMITH 


from  the  lower  James,  or  even  from  the 
sounds  of  North  Carolina,  Grant  reached 
the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  better  to 
retain  Meade  in  immediate  command  of 
the  principal  army,  and  to  place  Smith 
over  all  the  troops  that  could  be  mobil 
ized  from  Fortress  Monroe  in  Butler's 
department.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  open  or  secret  influences  at  work,  or 
the  reasoning  based  upon  the  facts,  this 
was  Grant's  first  decision,  but  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  plan  as  adopted  was 
afterwards  fatally  modified  by  permitting 
Butler,  notwithstanding  his  partiality 
for  Smith,  as  shown  by  his  recent  request 
for  his  re-assignment  to  his  department, 
to  take  the  field  in  person,  with  Smith 
commanding  one  of  his  army  corps  and 
Gillmore  the  other.  In  other  words, 
Grant  was  not  altogether  a  free  agent, 
though  the  government  had  ostensibly 
given  him  a  free  hand.  Of  course, 
Smith  knew  that  in  any  case  he  could 
not  be  permitted  to  make  all  the  plans, 
even  if  he  held  the  first  subordinate 
command,  and  it  is  always  possible  that 
he  had  not  specially  endeared  himself 
to  the  leading  officers  of  the  eastern 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       85 

armies,  but  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt 
that  he  would  have  given  efficient  and 
loyal  support  to  Grant  without  reference 
to  the  plan  of  operations  which  it  might 
be  found  necessary  to  adopt. 

Without  pausing  here  to  recapitulate 
the  arguments  for  and  against  the  line 
and  general  plan  of  operations  actually 
selected  by  General  Grant,  or  to  con 
sider  further  his  choice  of  subordinate 
commanders,  it  may  be  well  to  call  at 
tention  to  the  fact  that  the  organization 
and  arrangements  made  by  him  for  the 
control  and  co-operation  of  the  forces 
in  Viginia,  are  now  generally  regarded 
by  military  critics  as  having  been  nearly 
as  faulty  as  they  could  have  been.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  Meade,  with  a 
competent  staff,  had  immediate  com 
mand  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
but  was  followed  closely  wherever  he 
went  by  General  Grant  and  his  staff. 
At  the  same  time  Burnside,  with  the 
Ninth  Corps,  having  an  older  commis 
sion  than  Meade,  and  having  been  once 
in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  was  for  reasons  which  must  be  re 
garded  as  largely  sentimental,  permitted 


86     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


to  report  directly  to  and  receive  his  or 
ders  directly  from  Grant,  while  Butler 
with  two  army  corps  operating  at  first  at 
a  considerable  distance  and  later  in  a 
semi-detached  and  less  independent  man 
ner,  made  his  reports  to  and  received 
his  instructions  directly  from  Grant's 
headquarters. 

This  arrangement,  as  might  have  been 
foreseen,  was  fatal  to  coherent  and  prompt 
co-operative  action,  and  the  result  was 
properly  described  by  Grant  himself  as 
comparable  only  to  the  work  of  a  "balky 
team."  It  was  in  the  nature  of  things 
impossible  to  make  either  the  armies 
or  the  separate  army-corps  work  harmo 
niously  and  effectively  together.  The 
orders  issued  from  the  different  head 
quarters  were  necessarily  lacking  in  uni 
formity  of  style  and  expression,  and 
failed  to  secure  that  prompt  and  unfail 
ing  obedience  that  in  operations  extend 
ing  over  so  wide  and  difficult  a  field  was 
absolutely  essential,  and  this  was  entirely 
independent  of  the  merits  of  the  different 
generals  or  the  peculiarities  of  their  Chiefs 
of  Staff  and  Adjutants  General.  The 
forces  were  too  great;  they  were  scat- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      87 


tered  too  widely  over  the  field  of  oper 
ations;  the  conditions  of  the  roads,  the 
width  of  the  streams  and  the  broken 
and  wooded  features  of  the  battle  fields 
were  too  various,  and  the  means  of  trans 
port  and  supply  were  too  inadequate  to 
permit  of  simultaneous  and  synchronous 
movements,  even  if  they  had  been  intel 
ligently  provided  for,  and  the  generals 
had  uniformly  done  their  best  to  carry 
them  out. 

But  when  it  is  considered  that  Grant's 
own  staff,  although  presided  over  by  a 
very  able  man  from  civil  life,  and  con 
taining  a  number  of  zealous  and  experi 
enced  officers  from  both  the  regular  army 
and  the  volunteers,  was  not  organized 
for  the  arrangement  of  the  multifarious 
details  and  combinations  of  the  marches 
and  battles  of  a  great  campaign,  and  in 
deed  under  Grant's  special  instructions 
made  no  efforts  to  arrange  them,  it  will 
be  apparent  that  properly  co-ordinated 
movements  could  not  be  counted  upon. 
When  it  is  furtherconsidered  that  Meade, 
Burnside,  Butler,  Hunter  and  afterwards 
Sheridan,  as  well  as  the  corps  com 
manders,  were  left  almost  invariably  to 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


work  out  the  details  for  themselves,  it 
will  be  seen  that  prompt,  orderly,  simul 
taneous  and  properly  co-operating  move 
ments  on  an  extended  scale,  from  differ 
ent  parts  of  the  same  theatre  of  opera 
tion,  and  that  properly  combined  marches 
and  battle  movements  were  almost  im 
possible.  As  a  fact  they  rarely  ever 
took  place,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  best  officers  of  every  grade 
in  the  armies  operating  in  Virginia  found 
much  throughout  the  campaign,  from 
beginning  to  end,  to  criticise  and  com 
plain  of.  Nor  is  it  to  be  thought  strange 
that  many  of  their  best  movements  were 
successful  rather  because  of  good  luck 
than  of  good  management,  or  failed 
rather  because  of  their  defective  execu 
tion,  than  by  the  enemy's  better  arrange 
ments  or  superior  generalship,  though  it 
is  evident  that  the  Confederates  kept 
their  forces  better  in  hand  and  operated 
more  in  masses  than  did  the  Union 
generals.  Their  organizations  were  sim 
pler  and  more  compact,  their  generals 
were  better  chosen  and  better  supported. 
Operating  generally  on  the  defensive 
and  fighting  behind  breastworks  when- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      89 


ever  it  was  possible,  it  was  all  the  more 
necessary  to  bring  overwhelming  forces 
to  bear  against  them,  in  order  to  ensure 
their  final  overthrow.  In  addition  to 
the  defective  organization  and  inefficient 
staffarrangements  which  have  been  men 
tioned,  neither  the  Union  government 
nor  the  Union  generals  ever  made  pro 
visions,  or  seemed  to  understand  the 
necessity,  for  a  sufficient  preponderance 
of  force,  to  neutralize  the  advantages 
which  the  Confederate  armies  enjoyed, 
when  fighting  on  the  defensive,  or  to 
render  victory  over  them  reasonably  cer 
tain. 

Looking  back  over  the  long  series  of 
partial  victories,  vexatious  delays  and 
humiliating  failures,  and  considering  the 
inadequate  organization  and  defective 
staff  arrangements  for  which  Grant  was 
mainly  responsible,  it  is  evident  that  the 
terrible  losses  in  the  Union  army  in  the 
overland  campaign  were  due  quite  as 
frequently  to  the  latter  causes  as  to  in- 
competency  or  lack  of  vigor  on  the  part 
of  the  subordinate  commanders.  The 
blind  grapplings  in  the  forests  of  the 
Wilderness  could  not  be  helped,  when 


9O    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


both  armies  were  marching  through  it, 
for  they  could  not  see  each  other  through 
the  tangled  underbrush  till  they  were 
almost  face  to  face,  but  it  is  now  certain 
that  if  the  marches  of  the  Union  army 
corps  had  been  properly  timed  and  prop 
erly  conducted,  they  could  have  reached 
the  open  country  before  the  Confederate 
corps  could  have  engaged  them.  But 
when  the  senseless  assaults  of  fortified 
positions,  which  occurred  in  endless  suc 
cession,  from  Spottsylvania  Court  House 
to  Petersburg  are  considered,  it  will  be 
impossible  to  find  sufficient  excuse  for 
them.  They  were  in  nearly  every  case 
the  direct  result  of  defective  staff  arrange 
ments  and  the  lack  of  proper  prevision. 
In  a  few  instances  they  were  due  to  posi 
tive  incompetency  on  the  part  of  sub 
ordinate  commanders,  while  on  several 
notable  occasions  there  was  a  woeful  lack 
of  responsible  oversight  and  supervision 
on  the  part  of  those  whose  duty  it 
should  have  been  to  exercise  both.  Be 
fore  the  campaign  was  half  over  it  had 
come  to  be  an  axiom  among  both  officers 
and  men  that  a  well-defended  rifle  trench 
could  not  be  carried  by  a  direct  attack 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT   9! 


without  the  most  careful  preparation  nor 
even  then  without  fearful  loss.  Such  un 
dertakings  were  far  too  costly,  and  far  too 
frequently  ended  in  failure,  to  justify 
them  when  they  could  be  avoided.  But 
no  experience,  however  frequent  or 
bloody,  no  remonstrance  however  forci 
ble,  could  eradicate  the  practice  of  resort 
ing  to  them  occasionally.  Rawlins  was 
utterly  opposed  to  them  and  never  failed 
to  inveigh  against  them  but  the  advice  of 
more  than  one  trusted  and  influential 
staff  officer  was  uniformly  in  favor  of 
assaulting  fortified  positions.  The  fav 
orite  refrain  at  general  headquarters  is 
said  to  have  been  "  Smash  'em  up ! 
Smash  'em  up !" 

It  was  with  special  reference  to  the 
application  of  this  method  of  procedure 
at  Cold  Harbor,  that  General  Smith 
afterwards  gave  vent  to  his  indignation 
in  words  of  the  bitterest  criticism.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  the  entire  army 
confronting  the  enemy  had  advanced  on 
that  fatal  day  in  compliance  with  a  gen 
eral  order  to  attack  "all  along  the  line," 
which  was  done  in  a  half-hearted,  desul 
tory  manner,  foreboding  failure  and 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


defeat.  Not  a  soul  among  the  generals 
or  in  the  righting  line  dreamed  of  suc 
cess  and  not  a  commander  from  highest 
to  lowest  except  Smith  and  Upton, 
made  any  adequate  preparation  to  achieve 
it.  Officers  and  men  alike  felt  that  they 
had  been  ordered  to  a  sure  defeat. 
Knowing  intuitively  what  awaited  them, 
they  wrote  their  names  on  scraps  of 
paper  and  pinned  them  to  their  coats  in 
order  that  their  bodies  might  be  identi 
fied  after  the  slaughter  was  over.  This 
done  they  advanced  in  long  and  waver 
ing  lines  of  blue  against  the  enemy's 
bristling  breastworks  and  rifle  pits,  and 
were  mowed  down  like  ripe  grain  before 
the  scythe.  In  almost  as  short  a  time 
as  it  takes  to  recount  the  useless  sacrifice, 
over  twelve  thousand  Union  soldiers 
were  killed  and  wounded,  without  shak 
ing  the  enemy's  position  or  inflicting 
serious  injury  upon  him. 

Smith  and  his  gallant  corps,  did  their 
part  bravely  in  the  futile  attack.  They 
were  just  back  from  Butler's  abortive 
movement  to  Bermuda  Hundred,  in 
which  by  good  management  on  the  part 
of  the  General,  and  by  steadiness  on  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      93 


part  of  the  men,  they  had  saved  the 
expedition  from  a  disgraceful  defeat. 
They  were  not  only  hungry  and  tired, 
but  disgusted  with  the  incompetency  of 
Butler  and  his  abortive  plans.  The 
situation  which  confronted  them  was 
most  discouraging.  They  were  on  new 
and  unknown  ground,  but  they  had  not 
yet  worn  themselves  out  against  Lee's 
veterans  and  therefore  they  cheerfully 
took  the  position  assigned  them.  Smith 
with  his  usual  foresight  and  deliberation 
made  haste  to  examine  the  ground  in  his 
front,  and  by  availing  himself  of  the 
advantages  which  his  trained  eye  soon 
detected  he  was  enabled  to  direct  his 
main  attack  along  a  sheltering  depression 
against  a  weak  point,  where  he  reached 
and  broke  through  the  enemy's  line.  He 
needed  only  the  prompt  and  vigorous 
support  that  intelligent  prevision  and 
co-operation  would  have  given,  to  make 
his  lodgement  safe  and  his  victory  cer 
tain.  But  as  no  one  above  him  seems 
to  have  expected  victory,  no  proper  pro 
vision  was  made  to  ensure  it.  No  sup 
ports  were  at  hand.  Each  corps  com 
mander  was  looking  out  for  his  .  own 


94     GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


front  only,  and  not  for  his  neighbor's. 
The  Confederates  were  more  wise  and 
more  alert,  and  seeing  the  danger  which 
threatened  the  continuity  of  their  line, 
made  haste  to  concentrate  their  forces 
against  Smith  and  of  course  hurled  him 
back  with  terrible  loss. 

Smarting  under  this  unnecessary  dis 
aster,  and  grieving  over  the  useless  loss 
and  suffering  of  his  gallant  men,  it  was 
but  natural  that  he  should  vent  his  feel 
ings  in  sharp  and  caustic  denunciation 
of  all  who  were  in  any  degree  respon 
sible  for  the  blunder.  He  was  especially 
outspoken  with  Grant  and  Rawlins, 
whose  confidence  he  had  won  in  the 
Chattanooga  campaign,  and  with  whom 
he  had  since  been  on  terms  of  the 
closest  intimacy  and  friendship.  It  is 
but  just  to  note  that  they  did  not  at  that 
time  appear  to  consider  his  criticism  as 
in  any  sense  directed  against  them  nor 
did  they  rebuke  or  condemn  it,  but  to  the 
contrary  they  gave  him  every  assurance 
of  sympathy  and  approval. 

But  Smith  although  one  of  the  heavi 
est  sufferers,  was  not  the  only  or  even  the 
severest  critic,  of  the  mismanagement  or 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      95 


lack  of  management  which  characterized 
that  disastrous  day.  The  result  was 
most  demoralizing  to  the  army.  Officers 
of  every  grade  were  unreserved  in  their 
condemnation.  The  newspaper  criti 
cism  was  wide-spread  and  continuous. 
It  was  with  special  reference  to  the 
useless  slaughter  at  Cold  Harbor  that  the 
gallant  and  invincible  Upton,  then  com 
ing  to  be  widely  recognized  as  the  best 
practical  soldier  of  his  day,  immediately 
wrote  in  confidence  to  his  sister.  "I  am 
disgusted  with  the  generalship  displayed. 
Our  men  have  in  many  instances  been 
foolishly  and  wantonly  sacraficed.  *  *  * 
Thousands  of  lives  might  have  been 
spared  by  the  exercise  of  a  little  skill; 
but  as  it  is,  the  courage  of  the  men  is 
expected  to  obviate  all  difficulties.  I 
must  confess  that  so  long  as  I  see  such 
incompetency,  there  is  no  grade  in  the 
army  to  which  I  do  not  aspire."  Later 
referring  to  the  same  battle,  he  adds: 
"On  that  day  [at  Cold  Harbor]  we  had 
a  murderous  engagement.  I  say  murder 
ous,  because  we  were  recklessly  ordered 
to  assault  the  enemy's  entrenchments 
knowing  neither  their  strength  nor 


96    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


position.   *  :   I  am  very  sorry  to  add 

that  I  have  seen  but  little  generalship 
during  the  campaign.  Some  of  our 
corps  commanders  are  not  fit  to  be 
corporals.  Lazy  and  indifferent  they 
will  not  even  ride  along  their  lines,  yet 
without  hesitancy  they  will  order  us  to 
attack  the  enemy,  no  matter  what  their 
position  or  numbers."  As  the  assault  on 
Cold  Harbor  was  a  general  one,  it  follows 
of  course  that  it  must  have  been  ordered 
by  someone  higher  in  authority  than 
either  Smith  of  the  Eighteenth  or  Upton 
of  the  Sixth  Corps. 

It  was  doubtless  in  allusion  to  this  and 
to  similar  instances  that  the  veracious 
and  outspoken  Humphreys,  at  that  time 
M cade's  Chief  of  Staff,  and  afterwards 
the  peerless  commander  of  the  Second 
Army  Corps,  wrote:  "The  incessant 
movements  day  and  night  for  so  long  a 
period,  the  constant  close  contact  with 
the  enemy  during  all  that  time,  the 
almost  daily  assaults  upon  intrench- 
ments  having  entanglements  in  front 
and  defended  by  artillery  and  musketry 
in  front  and  flank,  exhausted  both  offi 
cers  and  men."  Although  all  the  orders 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT       97 


which  brought  about  this  unfortunate 
condition  of  affairs  must  have  passed 
through  Humphreys  himself,  it  is 
obvious  that  they  could  not  have  origi 
nated  with  him,  but  must  have  come 
from  higher  authority. 

If  the  imperturbable  and  painstaking 
Smith,  fresh  from  the  triumphs  and  con 
fidences  of  Chattanooga,  should  have 
lost  his  patience  under  these  distressing 
circumstances,  and  declared  to  General 
Grant,  frankly  and  fearlessly  as  he  did 
as  was  clearly  his  duty,  that  "there  had 
been  a  fearful  slaughter  at  Cold  Har 
bor,"  surely  it  should  not  have  been 
brought  up  against  him  later  as  one  of 
the  reasons  for  relieving  him  from  the 
command  of  the  troops  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  the  James,  to  which  he  had 
been  assigned  after  this  criticism  had 
been  made.  If  in  the  same  interview 
Grant  acknowledged,  as  it  is  credibly 
stated  he  did,  "that  there  had  been  a 
butchery  at  Cold  Harbor,  but  that  he 
had  said  nothing  about  it,  because  it 
could  do  no  good,"  his  remembrance 
of  the  circumstance  to  the  prejudice  of 
Smith,  must  be  regarded  as  an  after- 


90     GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

thought  which  had  its  origin  in  some 
cause  not  yet  fully  explained. 

It  is  altogether  likely  that  Smith's 
criticism  was  repeated  to  others  less 
entitled  to  speak  than  himself  and  that 
it  was  exaggerated  into  a  direct  attack 
upon  both  Meade  and  Grant,  which 
could  not  be  passed  over  lightly.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  it  must  be  apparent  that 
it  was  fully  justified  as  a  mere  matter  of 
military  criticism  and  quite  independent 
of  both  Smith  and  Upton,  it  was  gen 
erally  approved  both  by  the  army  and 
the  country  at  large. 

It  was  shortly  after  the  assault  in 
question,  while  I  was  commanding  a 
division  of  cavalry,  that  I  visited  Grant's 
headquarters.  During  the  conversation 
which  followed  the  Lieutenant  General 
asked  me:  "What  is  the  matter  with 
this  army?"  To  which  I  replied:  "It 
will  take  too  long  to  explain,  but  I  can 
tell  you  how  to  cure  it.  Give  Parker  [the 
Indian  Chief]  a  tomahawk,  a  supply  of 
commissary  whiskey  and  a  scalping  knife 
and  send  him  out  with  orders  to  bring 
in  the  scalps  of  general  officers."  Dur 
ing  this  same  visit  and  frequently  after- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT      99 


wards  Rawlins,  in  a  white  rage,  inveighed 
against  the  desperate  practice  of  blindly 
assaulting  fortified  lines,  and  denounced 
in  unmeasured  terms  all  who  favored 
them  or  failed  to  make  adequate  prepara 
tion  for  success,  where  any  just  excuse 
could  be  found  for  resorting  to  them. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark,  without  refer 
ence  to  the  origin  of  the  practice,  or  to 
the  persons  who  were  responsible  for  it, 
that  General  Grant  alone  had  the  power 
to  stop  it,  and  that  later  there  was  a 
noticeable  change  in  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  in  regard  to  that  practice, 
although  it  should  be  noted  that  Sher 
man  followed  it  as  an  example  in  his 
desperate,  but  unsuccessful  assault  of  the 
enemy's  impregnable  fortifications  on 
Kenesaw  Mountain,  for  the  purpose,  as 
he  frankly  explained,  of  showing  that  his 
army  could  also  assault  strongly  fortified 
lines. 

That  such  a  costly  practice  could 
spring  up  and  obtain  imitation  in  our 
army  is  a  striking  commentary  upon  the 
lack  of  intelligent  supervision  over  the 
essential  details  of  its  daily  operations. 
It  affords  ample  justification  for  again 


IOO  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  this 
respect  the  Confederate  Army  was  much 
better  off  and  more  fortunate  than  the 
Union  Army.  Its  generals,  although 
not  without  fault,  were  much  more  care 
ful  in  the  management  of  their  military 
details  than  ours  were.  Jefferson  Davis 
was  himself  an  educated  soldier  of  great 
capacity,  and  selected  none  but  educated 
and  experienced  military  men  for  high 
command.  While  Lee's  staff  was  far 
from  faultless  in  organization,  he  had 
supreme  authority  in  the  field,  with  no 
army  or  independent  corps  commanders 
between  him  and  the  troops.  His  army 
corps  were  led  by  generals  of  the  first 
rank,  who  took  their  orders  directly  from 
him,  and  no  unnecessary  time  was  lost 
in  their  transmission  or  execution,  nor 
was  there  any  uncertainty  as  to  whose 
duty  it  was  to  work  out  and  superin 
tend  the  details  of  attack  and  defence. 
But  whatever  may  be  said  in  further 
elucidation  of  this  important  subject,  I 
cannot  help  expressing  regret  that  Gen 
eral  Smith,  who  had  shown  such  rare 
talents  in  another  field,  for  planning  and 
executing  the  most  complicated  move- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    IOr 


ments,  should  not  have  had  in  this  an 
opportunity  to  add  to  his  fame,  instead 
of  being  sent  out  as  a  subordinate  to  a 
general  who,  however  great  his  talents 
as  a  lawyer  and  a  militiaman,  had  devel 
oped  no  special  aptitude  as  an  army  com 
mander.  In  this  connection  the  import 
ant  fact  should  be  recalled  that  Generals 
Barnard  and  Meigs,  officers  of  the  high 
est  training  and  distinction,  at  the  request 
of  General  Grant,  shortly  after  the  fiasco 
of  Bermuda  Hundred,  had  been  sent  by 
the  Washington  authorities  to  make  an 
investigation  of  General  Butler's  fitness 
for  command  in  the  field,  and  had  with 
due  deliberation  reported  that  while 
"  General  Butler  was  a  man  of  rare  and 
great  ability,  he  had  not  had  either  the 
training  or  experience  to  enable  him  to 
direct  and  control  movements  in  battle." 
It  was  doubtless  the  verification  of  this 
report  to  Grant's  satisfaction  that  caused 
him  finally  to  relieve  that  General  from 
duty  in  the  field,  and  in  doing  so  to  incur 
both  his  active  and  his  covert  hostility. 
Meanwhile  however  valid  and  import 
ant,  in  either  a  military  or  a  political 
sense,  the  considerations  may  have  been 


JQ-2,  CENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


which  sent  Butler  out  in  command  of 
an  army  with  such  men  as  Smith  and 
Gilmore,  both  professional  soldiers  of 
the  highest  standing,  as  his  subordinates, 
the  arrangement  was  unfortunate  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  from  its  very 
nature  it  was  foredoomed  to  failure.  It 
is  to  be  observed  that  while  these  admir 
able  soldiers  were  constantly  with  their 
troops  moving  against  or  confronting  the 
enemy,  Butler  was  generally  at  Fortress 
Monroe,  or  at  a  more  central  point  some 
distance  in  the  rear,  and  when  his  orders 
were  not  ill-timed  or  inapplicable  to  the 
case  in  hand,  they  were  not  infrequently 
deemed  impracticable,  or  at  cross  purposes 
with  the  convictions  of  the  generals  whose 
duty  it  was  to  carry  them  into  effect. 
The  simple  and  incontrovertible  fact 
is  that  General  Butler's  presence  with 
that  army  was  from  the  start  embarrass 
ing  if  not  absolutely  unnecessary.  It 
interposed  an  intermediate  commander 
between  the  generalissimo  and  two  entire 
army  corps,  and  however  good  the  inten 
tions  of  that  commander  or  great  his 
abilities,  his  principal  influence  was  neces 
sarily  to  derange  and  delay  the  orderly 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


conduct  and  development  of  the  cam 
paign.  It  was  productive  of  no  good 
whatever,  and  was  besides  in  direct  viola 
tion  of  the  rule  of  experience  which 
teaches  that  better  results  are  to  be 
expected  with  one  poor  commander  in 
full  authority  than  with  two  or  more 
good  ones  liable  to  pull  against  each 
other. 

The  chief  conclusion  to  be  reached 
from  these  considerations,  and  from  a 
study  of  the  records,  in  connection  with 
the  writings  and  unpublished  memoirs 
of  General  Smith,  is  that  his  conduct 
during  the  continuance  of  the  arrange 
ment  was  not  only  natural  and  blame 
less,  but  that  the  failure  of  Butler's  army 
to  play  an  important  and  decisive  part, 
was  due  primarily,  if  not  entirely,  to 
Butler's  own  misunderstanding  or  mis 
management  of  what  was  entrusted  to 
him,  or  the  inherent  defects  in  the  organ 
ization  and  staff  arrangements  of  the 
Union  forces  operating  in  Virginia. 
Under  the  conditions  as  they  actually 
existed,  effective  co-operation  and  con 
trol,  it  has  been  shown,  could  'not  thave 
been  reasonably  expected,  and  for  this 


104  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


the  verdict  of  the  military  critic  and  his 
torian  must  be  that  the  Lieutenant  Gen 
eral  who  had  ample  power,  if  he  chose 
to  exercise  it,  was  primarily  responsible. 
Under  the  incontrovertible  facts  of  the 
case  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  conclu 
sion  can  be  avoided. 

It  will  be  recalled  by  those  who  have 
read  "  Butler's  Book,"  that  in  addition 
to  a  number  of  trivial  derelictions  of 
duty,  General  Smith  was  charged  with 
the  more  serious  one  of  having  failed 
through  negligence  and  an  untimely  ces 
sation  of  operations,  to  capture  Peters 
burg,  when  it  was  claimed  that  all  the 
conditions  were  favorable  to  success.  It 
should  also  be  recalled  that  several  weeks 
after  this  failure  had  taken  place  and 
all  the  necessary  explanations  had  been 
made  and  considered,  the  President  had, 
on  Grant's  recommendation,  relieved 
Butler  from  further  service  in  the  field 
and  had  assigned  General  Smith  to 
the  command  of  the  Eighteenth  Corps 
which  was  composed  of  the  troops  from 
Butler's  department,  serving  with  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  should  be 
remembered  at  the  same  time  that  before 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    105 

General  Smith  received  this  order  he 
had  applied  for  and  been  granted  leave 
of  absence  on  account  of  illness,  or  as 
he  explained, "  because  of  his  old  trouble 
with  his  head,"  and  that  while  he  was 
absent,  the  Lieutenant  General  was  by 
some  means  never  fully  or  satisfactorily 
explained,  induced  to  restore  Butler  to 
his  former  command  and  to  dispense 
entirely  with  the  services  of  General 
Smith.  In  reply  to  a  letter  from  Smith, 
he  authorized  Colonel  Comstock  of  his 
staff  to  inform  him  that  he  had  been 
relieved  "  because  of  the  impossibility 
of  his  getting  along  with  General  But 
ler,"  who  was  his  senior  in  rank.  But 
General  Grant  assured  me  about  this 
time  that  it  was  with  great  regret  that  he 
had  taken  this  action ;  that  he  had  tried 
in  vain  to  utilize  Smith's  great  talents; 
that  he  had  been  too  free  in  his  criti 
cisms,  and  that  Smith  himself  had  made 
it  necessary  that  either  he  should  be 
relieved  or  that  Meade,  Burnside  and 
Butler  should  be  deprived  of  command 
and  sent  out  of  the  army.  Some  con 
versation  followed,  in  which  it  was  sug 
gested  that  he  should  have  given  the 


IO6  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

preference  to  the  alternative  as  a  means  of 
simplifying  the  organization  and  increas 
ing  the  efficiency  of  the  army,  and  it  is 
a  singular  coincidence  at  least,  that  this 
suggestion  was  partly  carried  into  effect, 
with  most  excellent  results,  by  the  relief 
of  both  Butler  and  Burnside,  shortly 
afterwards,  from  the  command  of  troops 
in  that  theatre  of  operations.  It  has 
besides  long  been  a  question  among 
military  men  whether  still  better  results 
would  not  have  been  obtained  if  Grant 
had  at  the  same  time  relieved  Meade, 
who  was  certainly  a  most  competent  and 
loyal  general,  from  the  immediate  com 
mand  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and 
placed  him  instead  at  the  head  of  an 
army  corps. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 
call  attention  to  the  fact  that  while  no 
specific  limitations  were  ever  put  upon 
the  responsibilities  of  Meade  as  an  army 
commander,  Grant  thenceforth  took  up 
on  himself  a  closer  supervision  of  the 
details  of  the  campaign,  while  upon 
many  occasions  during  the  final  opera 
tions,  he  gave  his  orders  directly  to  the 
corps  commanders,  instead  of  sending 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    IOy 


them  through  the  regular  official  chan 
nels.  The  result  of  this  practice  after 
it  became  confirmed,  was  in  every  case 
beneficial,  though  it  should  be  observed 
that  it  was  far  from  increasing  the  cor 
dial  relations  between  Grant  and  Meade 
or  between  their  respective  headquarters. 
But  to  return  to  the  breach  between 
Grant  and  Smith,  to  the  exact  state  of 
facts  which  led  up  to  it,  and  to  the  im 
mediate  pressure  which  finally  brought 
about  Smith's  relief  from  further  com 
mand  in  the  field.  Much  that  is  as 
well  forgotten,  has  been  written  about 
this  unfortunate  episode.  Smith  felt  to 
the  day  of  his  death  that  he  had  been 
misrepresented  to  Grant  and  unjustly 
injured  by  his  action.  He  always  con 
tended  that  the  whole  truth  had  not 
been  told,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that 
no  consecutive  and  exhaustive  analysis 
of  the  case  has  ever  been  made.  Per 
haps  none  can  be  made.  But  from  such 
information  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather, 
I  have  always  supposed  that  Grant's 
action  was  based  upon  Smith's  criticisms, 
exaggerated  reports  of  which  were  made 
by  certain  officers  of  Butler's  staff  with 


IO8  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


whom  Smith  dined  and  spent  the  night 
at  Fortress  Monroe  on  his  way  home, 
that  Butler  presented  these  reports  in 
person  to  General  Grant,  without  the 
knowledge  or  concurrence  of  Meade  or 
Burnside,  and  made  them  the  basis  of  a 
demand  for  Smith's  immediate  relief. 
Exactly  what  took  place  at  the  inter 
view  must  for  reasons  which  will  appear 
hereafter,  always  remain  a  matter  of  con 
jecture.  It  however  seems  to  be  prob 
able  that  had  General  Smith  deferred 
his  leave  of  absence  till  he  had  seated 
himself  firmly  in  his  new  command,  or 
had  he  been  sent  for  and  allowed  to  make 
his  own  explanation,  he  would  have  been 
spared  the  humiliation,  which  ended  his 
military  career,  while  the  country  would 
have  continued  to  receive  the  assistance 
of  one  of  its  greatest  military  minds. 

General  Smith,  by  his  military  writ 
ings,  has  not  only  refuted  the  unjust 
criticisms  of  General  Butler's  Book,  but 
he  has  modestly  and  conclusively  set 
forth  his  own  military  services  during 
the  various  campaigns  in  which  he  took 
part.  He  points  out  with  pardonable 
pride  the  friendship  which  sprang  up 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    IO9 


during  the  Chattanooga  campaign,  be 
tween  himself  and  General  Grant.  He 
makes  it  clear  that  his  failure  to  capture 
Petersburg  was  due  to  a  number  of 
causes  more  or  less  potential  and  alto 
gether  beyond  his  control.  First  among 
them  was  the  physical  exhaustion  of  him 
self  and  his  troops;  second,  an  order 
which  was  sent  to  him  through  the  signal 
corps  from  General  Butler,  who  was  all 
day  June  15  at  Point  Lookout  Signal 
Station,  to  stay  his  advance;  and,  third, 
the  failure  of  General  Hancock,  who  was 
with  the  Second  Corps  within  supporting 
distance,  to  take  up  the  movement  and 
give  the  finishing  stroke  to  the  day's 
work.  To  these  should  be  added  the 
defective  staff  arrangements  by  which  the 
various  forces  in  the  field  of  operations 
were  controlled,  the  inadequate  strength 
of  Smith's  command,  which  was  inex 
cusable  where  such  a  vast  force  was 
within  call,  the  lack  of  engineer  officers 
and  of  exact  information  as  to  the  char 
acter  of  the  ground  over  which  the  troops 
were  compelled  to  operate,  and  the  total 
absence  of  proper  support  and  co-opera 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  Army  of  the 


I  10  GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


Potomac.  Above  all,  it  should  be  kept 
in  mind  that  the  enemy  held  the  defen 
sive  and  had  interior  lines  upon  which 
he  could  throw  his  troops  from  point  to 
point  on  his  threatened  front,  with 
greater  celerity  than  the  attacking  force 
could  be  concentrated  by  outside  lines 
and  across  wide  rivers  against  him. 

When  Smith  began  his  movement 
against  Petersburg,  which  was  to  be  in 
the  nature  of  a  surprise,  the  greater 
part  of  Grant's  army  was  still  north  of 
the  James  River,  and  both  Meade  and 
Hancock  allege  that  they  were  not  noti 
fied  that  a  new  effort  was  to  be  made  to 
capture  Petersburg  by  Smith  alone,  after 
Butler  had  tried  and  failed  with  his  whole 
army  to  isolate  and  cut  it  off  from  Rich 
mond  by  the  movement  to  Bermuda 
Hundred.  Both  of  these  able  officers 
declare  that  if  they  had  known  in  time 
that  Petersburg  was  to  have  been  cap 
tured,  Petersburg  would  have  been  cap 
tured.  This  simple  statement,  without 
reference  to  its  truth,  which  has  never 
been  questioned,  is  conclusive  evidence 
that  the  staff  arrangements  and  the 
organization  of  the  machinery  of  com- 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT  III 


mand  were  fatally  defective,  for  had  it 
been  otherwise,  every  officer  who  could 
have  been  called  upon  to  take  part  in 
the  movement,  or  could  have  been 
expected  to  co-operate  with  it,  would 
have  been  so  clearly  instructed  as  to 
make  his  duty  entirely  plain. 

General  Smith,  in  explanation  of  why 
he  was  relieved  from  command  in  the 
field,  not  only  reflects  strongly  upon  the 
conduct  of  General  Butler,  but  endeavors 
to  show  that  General  Grant  "was  forced" 
by  Butler  to  restore  him  to  full  com 
mand,  in  order  to  prevent  the  exposure 
of  his  own  conduct,  yet  even  if  this 
were  true  it  necessarily  leaves  both  the 
question  of  fact  and  the  question  of 
motives  in  the  dark.  Certain  letters 
which  passed  between  Smith,  Grant, 
Rawlins  and  Butler  have  been  quoted, 
for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the  charac 
ter  of  the  persons  concerned.  They 
will  be  found  in  the  Records  and  they 
throw  much  light  upon  the  subject,  but 
they  still  leave  the  reason  of  Smith's 
removal  in  obscurity. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  Smith  was  a 
man  of  great  talents  and  conspicuous 


112  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


services,  with  unusual  powers  of  caustic 
criticism,  who  had  been  badly  injured  by 
the  way  in  which  his  connection  with  the 
Army  of  the  James  had  been  severed. 
His  views  and  conduct  had  been  im 
pugned,  not  only  then,  but  afterwards, 
in  both  the  newspapers  and  the  personal 
statements  of  the  day,  and  hence  it  was 
but  natural  that  he  should  retort  with 
an  appeal  to  the  facts  of  a  private  nature 
more  or  less  commented  upon  at  the 
time,  to  expose  the  reasons  for  official 
action  and  to  vindicate  his  own  conduct. 
He  strenuously  contended  that  he  was 
under  no  obligation  to  conceal  any 
important  facts  of  the  case  connected 
either  personally  or  officially  with  those 
who  were  using  him  unkindly  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  public  welfare,  especially 
where  those  facts  were  believed  to  be 
a  potential  factor  in  influencing  their 
official  acts  and  in  shaping  history. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Grant's  ex 
planations  of  his  later  attitude  towards 
Smith,  and  of  the  reasons  for  relieving 
him  and  restoring  Butler  to  command, 
were  neither  full  nor  always  stated  in  the 
same  terms.  He  ignores  the  subject 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    IIJ 

entirely  in  his  memoirs,  but  it  so  happens 
that  Mr.  Dana,  then  Assistant  Secre 
tary  of  War,  was  sitting  with  General 
Grant  when  Butler,  clad  in  full  uniform, 
called  at  headquarters  and  was  admitted. 
Dana  describes  Butler  as  entering  the 
General's  presence  with  a  flushed  face 
and  a  haughty  air,  holding  out  the  order, 
relieving  him  from  command  in  the 
field,  and  asking:  "General  Grant,  did 
you  issue  this  order?"  To  which  Grant 
in  a  hesitating  manner  replied:  "No, 
not  in  that  form."  Dana,  perceiving  at 
this  point  that  the  subject  under  discus 
sion  was  an  embarrassing  one,  and  that 
the  interview  was  likely  to  be  unpleas 
ant,  if  not  stormy,  at  once  took  his 
leave,  but  the  impression  made  upon  his 
mind  by  what  he  saw  while  present  was 
that  Butler  had  in  some  measure  "cowed" 
his  commanding  officer.  What  further 
took  place  neither  General  Grant  nor 
Mr.  Dana  has  ever  said.  Butler's  Book, 
however,  contains  what  purports  to  be 
a  full  account  of  the  interview,  but  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  it  signally  fails  to 
recite  any  circumstance  of  an  overbear 
ing  nature.  It  is  abundantly  evident, 


114  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


however,  from  the  history  of  the  times 
and  from  contemporaneous  documents 
published  in  the  Records,  that  neither 
the  working  arrangements  by  which 
Butler  commanded  an  army  from  his 
headquarters  at  Fortress  Monroe  or  in 
the  field  while  the  major  part  of  it,  under 
the  command  of  Smith,  was  co-operating 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  nor  his 
relations  with  either  his  superiors  or  sub 
ordinates,  were  at  all  satisfactory.  In 
the  nature  of  the  case,  they  could  not  be. 
Butler  was  a  lawyer  and  politician  accus 
tomed  to  browbeat  where  he  could  not 
persuade.  He  and  Smith  while  starting 
out  as  friends,  early  came  to  distrust 
each  other.  Smith,  who  was  as  before 
stated  on  intimate  terms  at  general  head 
quarters,  made  his  views  fully  known 
from  time  to  time,  and  especially  in  a 
frank  and  manly  letter  of  July  2,  1884, 
to  both  Rawlins  and  Grant,  and  from 
the  correspondence  of  the  latter  with 
Halleck,  it  is  certain  that  both  sympa 
thized  with  Smith  at  first.  It  was 
evidently  at  Grant's  request  to  Halleck, 
then  acting  as  chief  of  staff  and  military 
adviser  at  Washington,  that  Smith  was 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


assigned  to  the  Eighteenth  Corps,  and  at 
Grant's  request  that  he  was  relieved  from 
it,  without  explanation.  The  undisputed 
fact  is  that  the  countermanding  order  was 
issued  after  a  personal  interview  between 
Grant  and  Butler,  the  details  of  which 
are  only  partly  known,  and  that  no  fur 
ther  explanation  consistent  with  the  con 
tinuance  of  friendly  relations  between 
Grant  and  Smith  has  ever  been  given. 
The  inference  to  be  drawn  from  the 
records,  the  correspondence,  the  conver 
sations  and  the  writings  of  all  the  parties 
thereto,  is  that  the  representations  of 
Butler,  and  especially  his  comments  upon 
Smith's  criticism  of  the  battles  and  man 
agement  of  the  campaign,  were  the  prin 
cipal  factors  in  convincing  Grant  that 
the  best  way  out  of  the  complications 
was  to  relieve  Smith  and  restore  Butler 
to  full  command.  This  way  had  been 
foreseen  and  suggested  by  Smith  him 
self,  for  he  had  asked  more  than  once 
to  be  relieved  from  further  service  in  the 
field  on  account  of  ill  health,  which  made 
it  impossible  for  him  to  undergo  exposure 
to  the  hot  sun,  but  his  request  had  been 
denied,  doubtless  from  a  sincere  desire 


Il6  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


on  Grant's  part  to  have  the  advantages 
of  his  services  in  the  solution  of  the 
complicated  problem  which  yet  con 
fronted  the  army.  Had  this  request 
been  granted  when  made,  or  had  it  been 
granted  afterwards,  and  placed  on  the 
the  ground  of  a  personal  favor  for  the 
benefit  of  his  health,  which  might  well 
have  been  done,  General  Smith  has 
frankly  admitted  that  he  would  have 
had  no  shadow  of  excuse  for  anything 
but  thanks.  But  when  he  was  relieved 
without  notice  or  any  assignment  of 
cause,  as  he  was  starting  on  sick  leave, 
and  the  order  was  concealed  from  him 
till  he  had  returned,  a  suspicion  at  once 
arose  in  his  mind  as  to  the  motives  which 
inspired  it,  and  the  suspicion  was  claimed 
by  him  as  a  sufficient  justification  for 
telling  the  world  all  he  knew  in  regard 
to  those  who  were  responsible  for  the 
action  of  which  he  complains.  His 
military  criticism,  however  indiscreet,  had 
always  been  direct  and  manly.  Its  sound 
ness  had  been  approved  by  some  of  the 
best  officers  in  the  service,  including 
Grant  himself,  but  it  must  be  observed 
that  the  latter  in  his  final  report  of  the 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


campaign,  takes  pains  to  make  the  point, 
evidently  to  forestall  criticism,  that  he 
held  himself  responsible  for  only  the 
general  plans  of  the  campaigns  and  oper 
ations,  and  that  in  accordance  with  an 
invariable  habit,  he  left  the  details  and 
the  actual  conduct  of  the  battles  to  his 
subordinate  commanders.  The  wisdom 
of  this  arrangement  is  not  here  in  ques 
tion,  though  much  might  be  said  against 
it.  Its  effect,  if  admitted,  as  a  sound 
rule  of  action,  must  be  to  transfer  the 
responsibility  for  a  bloody  and  costly 
campaign  to  the  shoulders  of  Meade, 
Humphreys,  Burnside,  Butler,  Sheridan, 
Hunter,  and  in  a  number  of  cases  even 
to  those  of  corps  and  division  command 
ers,  instead  of  leaving  it  where  it  more 
justly  belongs,  on  the  shoulders  of  those 
who  were  responsible  for  the  working 
organization  of  the  army,  and  for  the 
details  of  its  staff  arrangements. 

General  Smith's  true  place  in  history 
does  not  depend  solely  on  these  con 
siderations,  nor  on  his  contributions  to 
the  history  or  criticism  of  the  war.  For 
tunately  for  him  the  military  committee 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the 


I  T  8  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

Fiftieth  Congress  on  its  own  motion,  long 
after  all  these  incidents  had  been  closed, 
investigated  his  military  career,  for  the 
purpose  of  deciding  upon  his  fitness  for 
the  retired  list,  and  on  April  20,  1888, 
it  submitted  to  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  a  highly  favorable  report,  from 
which  the  following  extract  is  taken: 

"On  October,  1863,  he  [General 
Smith]  was  transferred  to  the  West, 
where  he  in  turn  became  Chief  Engineer 
of  the  Department  of  the  Cumberland, 
on  the  staff  of  General  George  H. 
Thomas,  and  of  the  Military  Division 
of  the  Mississippi,  on  the  staff  of  Gen 
eral  Grant.  As  such  he  devised  the 
plan  of  operations  by  which  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland  was  saved  from 
starvation  and  capture  at  Chattanooga, 
and  was  duly  credited  with  the  same  by 
General  Thomas.  He  also  devised  the 
plan  of  operations  by  which  Bragg's 
army  was  overthrown  and  driven  back 
from  Missionary  Ridge,  for  which  ser 
vices  he  was  again  appointed  and  this 
time  confirmed  as  Major  General  of 
Volunteers,  also  as  Brevet  Brigadier 
General,  United  States  Armv." 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


After  referring  to  other  incidents  of 
his  life,  which  have  been  considered 
more  fully  in  this  account  of  his  public 
services  and  need  not  be  repeated  here, 
this  report  added,  although  General 
Smith  had  resigned  from  the  army  many 
years  before,  that  he  was  "  fully  entitled 
at  the  hands  of  the  government  to  be 
retired  for  a  lifetime  of  hard  and  con 
spicuous  service,  in  which  he  has  dis 
played  the  most  incorruptible  honesty, 
the  most  outspoken  patriotism  and  devo 
tion  and  the  highest  ability.  It  has  been 
the  good  fortune  of  but  few  men  in  any 
age  or  in  any  country  to  save  an  army 
and  to  direct  it  to  victory,  from  a 
subordinate  position.  Such  service  in 
Europe  would  secure  honor  and  riches. 
In  ours  it  should  certainly  result  in  an 
assignment  to  a  place  on  the  retired  list 
of  the  army,  with  the  rank  of  Major 
General,  and  the  appropriate  pay  for 
the  remaining  years  of  his  life.  The 
committee  therefore  unanimously  recom 
mend  the  passage  of  the  bill." 

The  final  action  taken  in  this  case, 
while  highly  creditable  to  General  Smith, 
was  not  as  liberal  as  the  House  Commit- 


I  2O  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


tee  thought  it  ought  to  be.  The  Senate 
Committee,  while  concurring  in  the  com 
mendation  of  the  General,  in  conformity 
to  its  own  practice  cut  his  rank  on  the 
retired  list  down  to  that  of  Major,  which 
was  the  actual  grade  he  held  in  the  regu 
lar  army  at  the  date  of  his  resignation. 
It  was  a  piece  of  ungracious  and  nig 
gardly  economy,  for  the  services  which 
entitled  him  to  retirement  were  those  of 
a  general  officer,  and  as  he  was  actually 
promoted  from  Brigadier  General  to 
Major  General  in  recognition  thereof, 
the  House  of  Representatives  was  clearly 
right  in  recommending  his  retirement 
with  the  higher  grade.  General  Smith, 
who  had  not  in  any  way  asked  for 
this  recognition,  was  strongly  inclined 
to  decline  it,  but  on  the  solicitation  of 
his  friends  he  finally  accepted  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  war  General  Smith, 
notwithstanding  the  differences  which 
had  arisen  between  him  and  his  official 
superiors,  received  the  brevet  of  Major 
General  for  "gallant  and  meritorious  ser 
vices  in  the  field  during  the  rebellion." 

After  his  relief  from  further  service 
in  the  field,  General  Smith  remained  at 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    121 


New  York,  awaiting  orders,  till  Novem 
ber  24th,  1864,  at  which  time  he  was 
assigned  to  special  duty  under  the  orders 
of  the  Secretary  of  War.  This  detail 
was  voluntarily  tendered  and  took  him 
to  New  Orleans,  where  he  was  engaged 
in  looking  into  the  military  administra 
tion  of  the  department,  under  Butler  and 
his  successors,  and  in  reference  to  which 
he  made  several  confidential  reports 
which  have  never  been  given  to  the  pub 
lic.  Perceiving  that  his  military  career 
was  practically  at  an  end,  and  that  he 
was  not  likely  to  receive  satisfactory 
recognition  on  the  reorganization  of  the 
army,  he  resigned  his  volunteer  commis 
sion  on  the  4th  of  November,  1865, 
and  took  a  leave  of  absence  as  a  Major 
of  Engineers,  from  December  I5th, 
1865,  to  March  yth,  1867,  on  which 
later  date  his  resignation  from  the  army 
was  accepted.  He  had  meanwhile  taken 
employment  as  President  of  the  Inter 
national  Ocean  Telegraph  Company, 
and  had  visited  Florida,  Cuba  and  Spain 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  an  exclusive 
concession  for  a  term  of  years,  for  laying, 
maintaining  and  operating  an  ocean  tele- 


122  GENERALWILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


graph  cable  from  Jacksonville  to  Havana. 
He  was  most  successful  in  his  negotia 
tions,  and  in  the  construction  and  man 
agement  of  his  lines,  till  1873,  when  ne 
and  his  associates  sold  out  under  advan 
tageous  terms  to  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company.  For  the  next 
two  years  he  resided  abroad,  mostly  in 
England,  with  his  family.  During  this 
time  he  visited  nearly  all  the  countries 
of  western  Europe,  where  he  met  and 
made  the  acquaintance  of  many  leading 
men  in  the  highest  walks  of  life. 

In  May,  1873,  General  Smith  was 
appointed  one  of  the  police  commis 
sioners  for  New  York  City,  which  place 
he  filled  till  December  3  ist  of  that  year, 
when  he  was  appointed  president  of  the 
board.  He  held  this  office  till  March 
nth,  1 88 1,  during  which  time  he  took 
an  important  part  in  elevating  and  per 
fecting  the  police  service.  He  was, 
however,  too  honest  and  independent 
to  get  on  harmoniously  with  the  poli 
ticians,  and  after  an  open  breach  with  a 
number  of  them,  including  the  Mayor, 
he  resigned  his  position  and  retired  to 
private  life. 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT 


While  engaged  in  this  service  he  took 
an  active  interest  in  the  presidential 
campaign.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
the  closeness  of  the  vote  between  Mr. 
Tilden  and  General  Hayes,  and  the 
high  degree  of  tension  between  the 
opposing  parties  and  their  managers, 
filled  the  country  with  alarm,  in  the 
midst  of  which  General  Smith  was  con 
sulted  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Tilden, 
with  the  view  of  devising  measures 
against  the  possibility  of  a  subversion  of 
the  government  by  military  or  arbitrary 
power,  but  fortunately  the  device  and 
action  of  the  Electoral  Commission 
averted  all  danger  of  that  sort.  The 
timid  and  vacillating  behavior  of  Mr. 
Tilden  during  the  emergency  and  after 
wards  was,  however,  a  powerful  factor  in 
the  estrangement  of  his  supporters,  and 
did  much  to  bring  about  the  nomination 
of  General  Hancock  by  the  next  Dem 
ocratic  National  Convention.  General 
Smith  and  his  friend  General  Franklin 
took  an  active  interest  in  the  canvass 
and  convention,  and  although  they  were 
soldiers  without  political  experience,  it 
is  believed  that  their  endorsement  of 


124  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


Hancock  and  their  work  in  his  behalf 
was  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences 
in  securing  his  nomination.  They  had 
been  his  life-long  friends  and  his  com 
rade  during  the  great  conflict,  and  hence 
felt  justified  in  giving  him  their  most 
earnest  support. 

At  the  close  of  the  presidential  cam 
paign,  the  result  of  which  was  necessarily 
disappointing  to  General  Smith,  he  was 
compelled,  by  unfortunate  investments, 
to  look  about  for  an  occupation.  His 
friend,  General  John  Newton  was  then 
Chief  of  Engineers  and  the  system  of 
Internal  Improvements,  which  had  long 
been  favored  by  the  Republican  party, 
was  being  carried  forward  by  bountiful 
appropriations  from  Congress.  Many 
officers  and  civil  engineers  were  required 
for  the  supervision  of  the  various  river 
and  harbor  works,  and  General  Smith, 
having  had  wide  experience,  was,  by  the 
act  of  his  friend,  appointed  Government 
Agent,  and  placed  in  charge  of  the  works 
on  the  Peninsula  between  the  Delaware 
and  Chesapeake  Bays,  with  his  head 
quarters  at  Wilmington,  Delaware.  On 
March  ist,  1889,  he  was,  in  compliance 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT  12 


with  a  special  Act  of  Congress,  put  upon 
the  retired  list  of  the  army,  with  the  rank 
of  Major.  This  at  once  raised  the  ques 
tion  whether  he  could  draw  the  pay  ap 
propriate  to  his  retired  rank,  and  at  the 
same  time  receive  pay  as  a  Government 
Agent.  After  argument  by  his  friend, 
the  Honorable  Anthony  Higgins,  the 
United  States  Senator  from  Delaware, 
the  case  was  decided  in  his  favor  on  the 
theory  that  an  "agent"  was  not  an  officer, 
within  the  meaning  of  the  law.  The 
decision  in  this  case  was  similar  to  that 
made  in  the  case  of  Quartermaster  Gen 
eral  Meigs,  who  was  employed  to  super 
vise  the  construction  of  the  Pension 
Office  in  Washington,  after  he  had  been 
placed  on  the  retired  list.  Under  the 
decision  General  Smith  continued  to  per 
form  the  duties  and  draw  the  pay  of 
Agent,  till  1901,  when  he  voluntarily 
gave  up  the  appointment  and  definitively 
retired  from  business  of  every  kind. 
For  the  last  ten  years  or  more  he  resided 
in  Philadelphia,  where  he  enjoyed  the 
acquaintance  and  society  of  his  chosen 
friends  to  within  a  few  weeks  of  his 
death,  which  occurred  on  the  28th  day 


126  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 


of  February,  1903,  four  years  subse 
quent  to  the  death  of  his  wife. 

He  retained  his  wonderful  intellectual 
powers,  absolutely  unimpaired,  to  the 
date  of  his  final  illness.  With  keen  wit, 
sparkling  repartee  and  a  mind  always  on 
the  alert  for  fresh  information  and  the 
beauties  of  literature,  he  remained  a 
delightful  and  instructive  companion  to 
the  end.  Firm  in  the  Christian  faith 
and  fully  satisfied  that  life  had  nothing 
further  in  store  for  him  worth  waiting 
for,  he  took  his  departure  into  the  Silent 
Land  composed  and  free  from  regret, 
like  a  strong  man  going  to  sleep.  He 
left  a  son  and  daughter  with  many  friends 
and  hosts  of  companions  scattered 
throughout  the  country  to  mourn  his 
loss.  His  native  State  had  filled  his 
heart  with  pride  and  satisfaction  by  giving 
place  on  the  walls  of  its  capital  to  a 
bronze  effigy  and  tablet  with  a  laudatory 
inscription  celebrating  his  virtues  and  his 
most  distinguished  services,  and  handing 
down  his  memory  to  future  generations 
as  one  in  every  way  worthy  of  their 
respect  and  admiration. 

I    cannot   close    this   sketch   without 


1     k 


THIS  TABLET 
FROM  OTHER 


I  TO  VERMONT  BY  SOLDIERS 
DMIRE  SO  MUCH  HER  GREAT 
SOLDIER  SON 
BREVET  MAJOR  GENERAL 
WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH, 
U.  S.  AR 

THE  EXTRACTS  HERE  QUOTED  FR- 
ASSISTANT  SECRETARY  OF  WAR  C.A.DAN  A, TO  GENERAL 
CRANT,DATED  DECEMBER  2l,l863,SHOW  THAT  AT  A  CRISIS 
«  IN  THE  NATION'S  LIFE  HE  WAS  IN  THE  THOUGHTS' OF 
LINCOLN,STANTON  AND  GRANT, AS  THE  GENERAL  BEST 
QUALIFIED  FOR  THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  COMMAND. 

-  THE  SUREST  MEANS  OF  GETTING  THE  REBELS 

ALTOGETHER  OUT  OF  EAST  TENNESSEE  IS  TO  BE  FOUND  IN 

THE  ARMY  OF  THE  POTOMAC^~^^.THIS  NATURALLY 

LEO  TO  YOUR  SECOND  PROPOSITION, NAM  ELY  THAT  EITHER 

SHERMAN  OR  W.F. SMITH  SHOULD  BE  PUT  IN  COMMAND  OF 

THAT  ARMY^-^-  -.BOTH  THE  SECRETARY  OF  W'~ 

AND  GEN  .HALLECK  SAID^  *  *•-*  ^'CEN.W.F.SMIT 

WOULD  BE  THE  BEST  PERSON  TO  TRY'-  ^~ 

THE  PRESIDENT  -THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR  AND  GEN  HALLECK 

AGREE  WITH  YOU  IN  THINKING  THAT  IT  WOULD  BE  ON  THE 

WHOLE  MUCH  BETTER  TO  SELECT  HIM"  ^  -  -  V 

SERIES  I   VOL. XXXI  PACE  457  OFFICIAL  RECORDS 

UNION  AND  CONFEDERATE  ARMIES.CWAR  OF  THE  REBELLION! 


BRONZE   TABLET  TO   GENERAL   WM.    F.    SMITH 
IN    STATE   HOUSE  AT  MONTPELIER,  VERMONT. 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT  127 


repeating  in  part  my  personal  testimony 
to  the  strength  and  elevation  of  General 
Smith's  character.  He  was  blessed  by 
a  singularly  clear,  orderly  and  compre 
hensive  mind,  and  was  most  industrious 
and  persistent  in  its  use.  Somewhat 
phlegmatic  and  deliberate  in  tempera 
ment  and  manner,  he  gave  the  impress 
ion  occasionally  that  he  was  lacking  in 
push  and  energy,  but  such  was  not  the 
case  in  fact.  During  his  services  on  the 
Rio  Grande  he  suffered,  as  previously 
related,  a  malarial  attack  from  which  it 
is  now  evident  he  never  entirely  recov 
ered.  Under  exposure  to  the  summer 
sun,  he  was  for  the  rest  of  his  life  liable 
to  a  recurrence  of  the  symptoms  espe 
cially  those  pertaining  to  the  head,  and 
this  may  have  made  him  more  or  less 
irascible  at  times.  Military  habits  are 
at  best  not  calculated  to  develop  a  mild 
and  patient  behavior,  nor  to  beget  a 
spirit  of  resignation  to  unjust  or  arbi 
trary  treatment,  especially  if  it  comes  from 
higher  authority,  and  is  not  merited. 

General  Smith  was  the  last  man  to 
lay  claim  to  a  saint-like  character,  but 
according  to  those  who  knew  him  best 


128    GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

he  possessed  a  just  and  even  a  charita 
ble  disposition,  which  made  him  fair 
towards  his  equals  and  most  considerate 
towards  his  subordinates.  He  was,  how 
ever,  above  all  things,  logical,  and  as  a 
close  student  of  his  profession,  he  in 
variably  followed  the  established  prin 
ciples  of  the  military  art  to  their  legiti 
mate  conclusions.  In  the  presence  of 
great  military  problems  and  responsibil 
ities  such  as  those  with  which  he  had  to 
deal  at  Chattanooga,  he  became  absorbed 
and  reticent  if  not  austere  and  had  but 
little  to  say  except  to  those  with  whom 
it  was  his  duty  to  talk.  There  the  solu 
tion  was  so  clearly  his  own  that  no  one 
thought  of  disputing  it  with  him  till 
years  afterwards.  But  in  the  conduct 
of  operations  against  Lee,  there  were  so 
many  roads  open,  so  many  commanders 
in  the  field,  and  so  many  plans  of  oper 
ations  suggested,  so  many  considerations 
to  be  observed  that  no  one  man  except 
Grant  who  was  clad  with  special  powers 
for  the  emergency,  could  hope  for  the 
honor  of  directing  all  movements.  That 
became  his  exclusive  function  as  soon  as 
he  was  made  Lieutenant  General,  but 


HEROES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONFLICT    129 

unfortunately,  as  has  been  shown,  he  and 
Smith  began  drifting  apart  from  the  day 
of  their  arrival  in  the  East,  and  long 
before  the  great  task  before  them  was  ac 
complished  they  had  by  their  own  pecu 
liarities,  looking  at  the  problem  from 
different  points  of  view,  and  aided  doubt 
less  by  the  misrepresentations  and  self 
ish  purposes  of  others,  become  hope 
lessly  out  of  harmony  with  each  other. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  pronounce 
final  judgment  between  them.  They 
knew  each  other  well,  and  although 
Grant  had  said  towards  the  close  of  their 
friendship,  "General  Smith,  while  a  very 
able  officer,  is  obstinate,  and  is  likely  to 
condemn  whatever  is  not  suggested  by 
himself,"  he  had  shown  an  earnest  desire 
that  his  great  talents  should  be  utilized. 
On  the  other  hand  Smith,  who  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  both  the 
strength  and  the  weaknesses  of  Grant's 
character,  had  full  confidence  in  the 
soundness  of  his  judgment,  when  left 
free  from  prejudice  and  misrepresenta 
tion,  to  act  upon  a  full  statement  of  the 
facts.  Neither  had  hitherto  shown  him 
self  to  be  particularly  sensitive  to  criti- 


IJO  GENERAL  WILLIAM  FARRAR  SMITH 

cism  from  the  other,  and  both  were  in 
the  highest  degree  patriotic  and  loyal  to 
the  cause.  They  had  worked  harmoni 
ously  and  with  marked  success  together 
in  the  West.  Not  a  shadow  had  come 
between  them.  The  case  must  therefore 
have  been  a  most  complicated  one  which 
made  it  impossible  for  them  to  work 
together  in  the  same  manner  and  to  the 
same  end  in  the  East.  The  severance  of 
their  relationship,  to  whatever  influence 
it  may  be  attributed,  is  profoundedly  to 
be  regretted,  not  only  because  it  prema 
turely  ended  the  military  career  of  Gen 
eral  Smith,  but  because  it  must  have  in 
juriously  affected  the  fortunes  of  General 
Grant  as  well  as  of  the  country  and  the 
army,  at  a  time  when  both  sorely  needed 
the  help  of  every  capable  soldier.  These 
results  are  all  the  more  to  be  deplored 
because  no  one  can  study  the  circum 
stances  connected  therewith,  without 
reaching  the  conclusion  that  they  were 
brought  about  by  methods  which  were 
themselves  not  above  criticism,  and 
which  finally  resulted  in  the  downfall  of 
their  author. 

THE  END. 


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